Move On
by pigsinspaaace
Summary: My HC in which Simon had never really lost his magic, but he was traumatized by what his magic had done, and so he pushed it so far away that it disappeared. Here's the whole story in one place. It originally was split into 10 parts. I apologize for any discrepancies. This is too long to summarize, so I'll just say: enjoy! (I hope)
1. At Watford

**Baz** **  
**We bring the sandwiches back up to our room. I sit on my bed, suddenly self-conscious after having the room to myself for so long. Snow grabs a sandwich and sits down on his old bed. We sat like this for seven years, and now the room fills with the ghosts of all the Simons I watched, all the Simons who watched me, all the Simons I never touched. Simon's face is flickering like a reflection in moving water. We haven't spoken since we walked in. We were never this quiet even when we were enemies.

 **Simon** **  
**When it gets too still, I get up and stretch. I'm still in Agatha's dad's suit, my hair still stiffly parted. I move through the room, avoiding Baz automatically, muscle memory taking over. Not thinking. I grab my school pyjamas and head into the bathroom to shower and change. The insidious habits of seven years together taking over.

 **Baz** **  
**Simon won't even look at me. He walks around the room as if I'm not here, and my stomach twists with a familiar sour pang that stretches up to my heart. I didn't know he could still make me feel like this. He comes out of the bathroom, a towel around his shoulders, and I'm 15 again, sick with wishing and hating and wanting.

 **Simon** **  
**I walk out of the bathroom and see Baz staring at me with a familiar sneer on his sculpted face. The bitterness of his derision is almost a relief. At least I don't have to wait any longer for him to realize I'm not worth fighting, let alone loving.

 **Baz** **  
**I see his face crumple. Crowley, we're a mess. This is stupid. I make myself stand up, though I let my face retain its mask. I make myself walk over to Simon and put my cold hand on his warm shoulder. And then I wait.

 **Simon** **  
**The cold of Baz's hand on the heat of my shoulder breaks the past into the present. Baz raises his eyebrow and then his mouth is on mine and my hands are in his hair and his hands are slipping under my shirt and every movement heals every ghost the room throws at us until we're the only ones left.

 **Baz** **  
**I can't stop smiling as the rest of the world falls away and the smell of the tower and the walls mix with the smell of Simon's hair and skin and breath and time collapses and we collapse with it.

 **Simon** **  
**We end up on the floor between our beds, fingers laced together. Baz is smiling the smile from the photograph in the Mage's office a lifetime ago, and my heart breaks and fills and I lift our hands and bury my face in them and then I lick my own tears off each of his fingers. Slowly.

 **Baz** **  
**I didn't know there were that many places to kiss. I didn't know anything could feel like this.

 **Simon** **  
**Neither of us realizes until the next day that my wings and tail are gone.

 **Simon**

We stay holed up for a few sweet days. Seems like being back here is what got rid of my wings and my tail, though I don't really know why. One day I'll ask Penny.

I might be a little scared to leave. Every summer, I've left Watford and gone straight to hell for three months. Three months of starving and fighting, of being pushed back down into the special misery reserved for kids abandoned to state care. Three months of losing myself, until I don't know which is real, that world or this one.

It doesn't seem possible for both worlds to exist side by side. The summer world took it as given that I was to be cast aside, that I deserved every institutionalized humiliation I was subjected to. In the Watford world I was the most powerful mage ever to walk the earth, destined to save Magickind. I always suspected that only by being the Chosen One could I sneak into this alternate universe, that otherwise I was trapped as a citizen of the world of hunger and loss.

But now I'm a villain, my magic gone, and so maybe the world of the orphanage is the real one after all. The thought chills me with a helpless terror I though had passed with age.

 **Baz**

Simon has started disappearing again. Inside himself I mean. He kind of disappears and becomes angry, like a scared child. He gives off a pathetic fear that in the past would have made me trip him on the stairs or get him blamed for letting a dozen bats loose in the senior common room.

I had let myself believe he was back for good. We had two delicious days of mapping the constellations of his moles and smiling stupidly at each other. I annoyed myself with my absurd rosy-cheeked happiness. (And that's another thing. My cheeks are approaching something like rosy. And I haven't hunted since the dance and I hardly notice. I have to ask Bunce about that.) I suppose I should ask Bunce about Simon too. I can't watch him fade like this again.

 **Penelope**

I'm not surprised to find Simon's wings missing when I arrive at Watford. I've known for a while now that his magic isn't actually gone. I've been waiting for him to realize it too. I'm surprised at how long it's taken Baz to catch on. Simon's been punishing himself by having no magic, looking like a devil, never letting himself smile. Punishing himself for killing the Mage, punishing himself for helping the Mage. Punishing himself for everything.

The fact that he must still have some magic dawned on me soon after we were cleared of all charges in the Mage's death. Simon's words could only have killed the Mage if they were said with magic. And the Mage is certainly dead, and all of it happened after the humdrum was gone, so his magic couldn't have disappeared with the humdrum. Simon's wings and tail and magic-less-ness are all of a part. And now that the wings and tail are gone, maybe the magic can come back.

It's almost not strange anymore when Baz calls me. As almost-not-strange as the fact that he's calling because he's worried about Simon (though he still calls him Snow to me. As in: 'Snow's in a funk. It makes me want to play nasty tricks on him. You might want to put your talent for interfering to some use here.')

The look on Baz's face is so unfamiliar when I arrive that I stop short. Usually his face is a controlled mask, his feelings revealed only by the shape and degree of the sneer he wears. But now his face is open and raw, and I find myself scared for the first time at what I'll find when I see Simon.

 **Baz**

I'm surprised at how relieved I am to see Bunce. I let myself hand her some of the fear that's been creeping up on me since yesterday when Simon started staring bleakly again. I've been having a recurring dream about that night after we found Nicodemus, but in the nightmare it's Snow who's trying to off himself and I'm too proud to kiss him and I don't stop him before he puts his head in his hands and disappears. Night after night, in every dream, I fail to save him the way he saved me.

I take the chance to hunt while Bunce goes up to see Simon. I still don't know how she gets through the wards. Fearsome, frizzy-haired mage.

 **Penelope**

It hurts to see Simon so lost in his room. He never looked like that at Watford before. Maybe the very first day or so after he'd return each fall, his eyes haunted and skin chapped and ribs showing through his shirt. Which gets me thinking.

 **Simon**

It's so good to see Penny that I let her drag me out of the room and into the gardens. I blink stupidly in the sun and find myself shaking. Penny pretends not to notice. I walk beside her along the paths and up the ramparts until we have a view of the whole castle and the hills behind it. The air is colder up here and I start to feel calmer. She rests her head on my shoulder and I hold her so she can't see my eyes. I've never heard her go this long without explaining something.

 **Penelope**

The cooler air calms him, and my thoughts start to fall together. As I start understanding, I wonder if I should start explaining but decide to wait. What we need is a whiteboard. And Baz.

 **Baz**

I find them on the ramparts when I emerge from the catacombs. Oddly, there's a whiteboard on the ramparts with them. I never knew I'd be so happy to see a whiteboard. Bunce is a genius. They'll solve the mystery of Simon the same way they've solved every other mystery together. I let myself smile as I see her write the column headings: What we know. What we don't know.

 **Simon**

I vaguely register that I'm hungry when someone puts a sandwich in my hand as I turn to face the whiteboard. I eat it absentmindedly and stare at the headings. What we know. What we don't know. I try to fill them mentally and wonder how I'm supposed to narrow it down.

What I know: I know I've lost the only thing that ever made me anything. It's only a matter of time before everyone else sees it too. A matter of time before they leave me. What I don't know: what's supposed to happen next. I watch curiously as Penny starts to write. What we know: the air is warmer, the birds are singing, the trees are green and the students are leaving. It's a strange list. Why not: we live on an island, the sky is blue, and Americans like to eat peanut butter.

 **Baz**

I'm as confused as Simon usually is. Lately, Bunce and I have been thinking along the same lines. So I make myself take her seriously and read the list again. Warm air, singing birds, no students. Summer. She stops writing and turns to look at me. And then I know. And it breaks my heart all over again.

 **Penelope**

I see understanding settle in Baz's eyes, and I take a deep breath and turn back to the whiteboard.

 **Baz**

Summer. Simon Snow is scared of the summer.

I think about the fact that when Simon left Watford every summer, he left powerful, glorious. And when he returned every fall, he came back gaunt. Depleted. I never gave a thought to what wrought that transformation every year without fail. Not a single moment of my summer was spent wondering where he was while I played my violin, feeling sorry for all the things I would never have. I feel it like a punch to the gut, the realization that I didn't really see him all those years I was watching him. All I noticed each fall was that I had to wrestle again with the emptiness and fullness of being his roommate.

I didn't think I could hate the Mage more than I already did. I think about the cold cruelty of sending Simon again and again summer after summer to go through whatever it was that changed him, that crushed him. Presumably life in the orphanage, or maybe it was somewhere else. Wherever the Normals put him. I don't really know anything at all about where he went every year, or where he spent all those years before he showed up at Watford and the cauldron made him my roommate. I sink to the ground next to Simon. I'm back in my nightmare, tears flowing down my cheeks and dripping off my jaw unchecked.

 **Simon**

Baz is crying and I have no idea why. I look at what Penny has written under: What we don't know. Why the Mage died. Where the Humdrum went.

But we do know. I killed him. I killed them both. Penny usually knows what she's doing, so I force myself to take her seriously. I read the words again. Why did the Mage die? Because I killed him. I killed him by telling him to stop hurting me. Usually I can't think past this point, the curtain closes over my mind and I start to lose time. I force myself through the curtain this time. What is Bunce getting at? She keeps writing. Where did the Humdrum go? Where did Simon's wings go?

Ok, stick with the first one. She must mean, why did my words kill the Mage. But she can't mean for me to twist in the rack of figuring out why not hurting me meant he had to die. She's too good a friend. And when it finally hits me, I stand up so fast that Baz is knocked over and he looks kind of funny and surprised and I find I can smile again. He looks angry so I crouch down and take his hand and say it out loud as I pull him up with me.

My magic isn't gone after all.

 **Penelope**

We're on the football pitch. Leave it to Simon to find such a literal use for The game is afoot. I glare at him half-heartedly and smile despite myself when he laughs. Baz gets this look in his eye and starts to kick the ball viciously around us, prompting Simon to jump into action. Neither of them expects it when I trounce them both. Boys.

Then Simon and I explain it together to Baz, about Simon's magic. It's not the same, and that's probably for the best, but it's not gone. Any minute now, Simon's going to realize that this conversation only covers half the whiteboard. I decide to sneak off and let Baz handle the What-we-know side.

 **Baz**

Simon and I are drinking lemonade in the grass near the field. Bunce excused herself to go up to her mum's office. Strange how the three of us have all had claim to the headmaster's rooms at one point or another. I think she left to give us some space. I wonder if Snow's ever had lemonade, since it's a summer drink. I wonder what else I can give him that he's never had. I wonder if I'm going to be this sappy forever.

He must catch something of the look on my face because he turns to me with a small frown. "I still don't really know what happened this afternoon," he admits.

"Not too surprising," I respond idly, "you've always been rather thick." But I regret it immediately when I see his eyes cloud over and flit away. I have no idea how to be this person. But I have no idea how to be anyone else, either, so I press on.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about the summers?" I ask quietly. He looks confused and I realize he really doesn't know what happened on the whiteboard, on the ramparts. It makes me wonder what he thinks Bunce was up to if not that. Bunce isn't here to translate, so I try again.

"That's what Penelope was getting at," I explain. "The column of what we know. The heat, the birds. It's summer. That's what's happening to you."

I can see Snow's eyes change with understanding, but outwardly he just shrugs. I smile despite myself; I can speak Snow now. He lies back again, his curls falling ridiculously among the grass and clover, the late-day sun playing across his cheeks and throat, the shadows dancing as he swallows. I am still transfixed by the theater that is Simon's swallow. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" I repeat.

 **Simon**

It reminds me of this one time at Agatha's in sixth year. I was staying with her family over some school break and they had a bunch of people over and everyone was sitting around and telling stories and laughing and I was having fun and someone asked me what it's like to grow up around Normals. I told some story about this kid who got a roach stuck in his ear last summer and everyone laughed and the conversation moved on.

But later, when it was just me and Agatha, she asked why I told a story about the summer, not about growing up. I shrugged (it's my favorite gesture, I highly recommend it). And she looked at me softly and she said, "I guess I can see not talking about it in front of all those people. But you know you can talk to me, right? I'm always here to listen."

"Talk about what?" I asked (stupidly, as it turned out). And she said, holding my hand so softly,

"Growing up. You know. Like, your whole life before I met you. You can tell me. You can trust me."

And she flat out didn't believe me when I said that I don't remember anything that happened before Watford. I mean, I remember waking up when I was 11 after blowing up the orphanage, I remember the Mage coming for me, I remember him taking me to Watford.

And I remember the things that happened at Watford. I can remember little snippets of things from earlier, like the gray and brown of the bunks we slept in, or that I was the tallest kid in class in first grade, or that I once had this shirt I really liked. But none of that counts as a story. Agatha thought I was lying, that I wasn't telling her because I didn't really trust her. She was so upset, and I just wanted to make her feel better, I wanted to tell her whatever it was she wanted to hear, but that just upset her more.

That's how I found out that most people remember more stuff than I do. I always assumed everyone was like me. That it's all just kind of blank until you get to be a teenager. But everyone else can remember much farther back. Like back to when they were 4 or even 3. The idea was so bizarre to me that I think Agatha finally believed that I was telling her the truth, and we never talked about it again.

But that's not why I don't talk about the summers. I can remember the summers perfectly.

Every summer was the same. I'd head back to some juvenile holding center, and as I checked myself in (voluntarily, every fucking year) two guards would stand in a room with me while they made me strip off my clothes and shoes and put on these things that were halfway between a hospital gown and a prison uniform.

One year they confiscated some biscuits I'd brought back with me from Watford (I had extra from a thank-you stash I'd gotten after saving the kitchen elf from a jealous sprink), and they made a point of eating them out in the plexiglass vestibule where I would be sure to see. They didn't finish them all, and one of them showily threw the leftover biscuits in the bin while staring at me through the glass.

 **Baz**

After a few minutes, he finally speaks. "It's embarrassing, yeah? I didn't really want you to know. And. I don't. I don't know really. And I don't know what you want to know." Snow's not great with words.

I lean across him and smooth his hair out of his eyes, resting my hand on his face and leaning my forehead on his. "Everything. Anything. Whatever." I whisper.

His face softens and he moves his mouth to meet mine. But I want him to talk, so I don't let him linger there. I think about what he's just said, then ask, "What do you mean, embarrassing?"

He takes a deep breath and tries again. "I mean," he says. "It's just that. It's. The way. And..." I open my mouth but before I can even speak he groans and says, "Don't. Say it. Don't tell me to use my words."

So I wait in silence instead, and am rewarded when he tries again. "It just hurt. It hurts." he finally manages. "And, and I don't know. Hurting is embarrassing."

I actually do know exactly what he means, so I don't make him keep trying to explain. "I know," I say.

"I know," he says back. "I know you know. Because of the numpties." And I'm so surprised that he laughs and opens one eye and says "Not bad for a halfwit, eh?"

 **Simon**

He doesn't think that I know, but I know. I've known since Christmas Eve. Six weeks in a fucking coffin. It still makes me shudder when I remember the words coming out of his mouth, the sandwich falling from my hands. Six weeks. In a coffin. It made me want to smash things, still does. I wanted to shake him for not telling me, all that time. But I knew why couldn't tell me. I wished he had, but I knew I wouldn't have either. Why is suffering so embarrassing? I look over at him without moving my head (a move I learned from him, I think.) He freezes. I swear, he can hear my eyeballs swivel. Never date a vampire.

 **Baz**

I hear him looking at me. My eyes are closed and all I can see is Simon back in the foyer of the house in Hampshire, covered in mud and rain and rolling his eyes at me. He came back. He came back for me. He'd left with Bunce and Wellbelove and I'd been trying to pretend it didn't hurt, until he came back covered in mud looking like he'd been running in the rain for hours. He probably had done, if the girls were already halfway to London when he showed up dripping on the rug. But it had hurt, before that. And I never knew if that's why he came back. If he knew that it hurt.

Now that I think about it, the way I disappeared in the dark and pain and clotted air and blood of that coffin with its fucking bendy straws isn't that different from what's been happening to Simon these past weeks. And when I was slipping too far away, I held onto him, even though I didn't even have him then. His eyes, his hair, the moles on his neck and the lips I would never kiss.

I want to tell him all of this, but I don't know how. I can cast spells in four languages and six dialects but I can't find the words for this. So I reach down for his hand instead and feel his magic dancing across my skin and I know that he's really back, and so am I. And I whisper a promise to always come back. So quietly only a vampire could hear. And then I open my eyes and swivel them right back at him.

I spent half of sixth year fantasizing about kissing Snow on the football pitch. So when our eyes meet, I roll over, pinning him below me, and start with his neck, just to show myself I can. I lick the soft spot behind his left ear and prop myself up on my elbow while my right hand traces a line down his chest, stopping occasionally to let my fingers explore each groove and curve, every rise and fall. He makes a quiet noise deep in the back of his throat and I discover that we haven't yet discovered everything about each other.

His arms come up and surround me, one hand resting on the small of my back, a tiny oven, the other trailing sparks (literally) up my spine until it reaches the back of my neck, where it pauses for a moment before his fingers uncurl like vines through my hair. His fingers are so long. Everything about him is long, his throat, his fingers, ... everything.

The thought brings an answering moan to my own throat and it's embarrassing. As embarrassing things go, though, I'll take this over imprisonment in a coffin any day. He brings his chin up and catches my lips in his and I taste his tongue with mine and any lingering regret falls away and all that's left is unlikely miracle of Snow in my arms in the grass in the quiet dark as the summer sun finally sets. And I say his name, because I know he likes when I do. Simon. And again. Simon. Simon.

 **Simon**

We spend one last night in our old room.

As we're falling asleep, I feel surrounded by cold and I shiver. But the cold isn't coming from Baz; if anything, he's warmer than I am these days. The strange cold flows around me like a hug and reminds me of something, but I'm too tired to remember what it is before I drift off to sleep.

When I wake up, I'm finally ready to leave. Something's changed again between me and Baz. Now it doesn't matter so much whether I'm looking at him or he's looking at me but we look anyway. We dress together for the first time in this room. I marvel at the way the muscles in his back tighten and shift as he pulls a t-shirt down over his head, and follow their movements with my fingers before the shirt can hide them away. He grins lazily at me and drops the shirt to the floor. It's not a very efficient way to dress, but we're in no rush.

 **Baz**

I thought I'd cross every line for him, but there's one line I still haven't crossed. Not surprisingly, Snow would be happy to plow ahead without thinking. As usual. But I don't have that luxury.

I never even thought I'd get this far with Simon (with anyone) without slipping and biting him. I'm scared that if we go too far, if I lose control even for a moment, I will destroy it all. I will give in. I'll bite him. I'll drink every drop of blood in his beautiful, forbidden body.

I mean, it's not that I don't want to. Merlin and Morgana and Methuselah, I want it so much, it's like a physical pain alongside the pleasure of kissing him. And I know he would, that he wants to. But I'll never be able to. Not if I don't want to murder the one person I love most in this world.

 **Simon**

"You're blocking the mirror," he says later, leaning over my shoulder to fix the collar of his shirt. I look at his face next to mine in the mirror.

"I guess you _can_ see yourself in the mirror," I say. He rolls his eyes.

"We've lived together for seven years and you just figured that out now?" he asks, stepping back again. I turn around.

"Well, you never let me get that close in the mornings," I said.

"Living with you was hard enough, Snow," he sneers. "There was no reason to spike the punch."

I don't know exactly what that means, but I let him reach over and finish buttoning my shirt. My school shirt. I'm going to need to get some new clothes. I have absolutely no idea how to do that. As if he's read my mind (I have to remember to check once and for all if that is a vampire thing) he says, "Let's take you shopping tomorrow. I'll be in charge," he adds, seeing the panic in my face.

His hands drop after he finishes the last button, and I catch them and lace my fingers through his. "A long time," I say.

"What?" he asks. It's nice to see him confused for once.

"You asked me back in Hampshire, how long it's been that I'd wanted to kiss you. And I've been thinking about it. And being here, watching you dress, watching you stretch and lie on your bed, made me remember all the thoughts I always thought about you without really knowing I was thinking them. And I've wanted to kiss you for a long, long time."

He looks kind of startled, and blushes. I like making Baz blush, it feels like a real accomplishment. He smiles without quite meaning to, squeezes my hands and then turns to face the room.

"All right then," he says, slipping his wand out from his sleeve, "Up, up, and away."

Our trunks lift off the floor and follow us down the stairs from our turret, floating over the grounds and the moat and out the gates, and we're leaving Watford. Hand in hand. Whatever brought us to this point, I suppose it was worth it.


	2. In Hampshire

**Baz**

Snow comes home to Hampshire with me until he and Penny can move into their new flat. The hole over Hampshire was the first to retract, and my family was able to move back in June. The prevailing theory is that it's because it formed just before Simon filled the hole that was the Humdrum. I think it's because of the way Snow fills me.

Simon says my father still terrifies him (it's even more fun to watch Snow fluster about at dinner, now that I am fairly sure he's not leaving). But Daphne has practically adopted him. I hear her whispering to Father that nothing matters except my happiness (they know I'm a vampire but they forget that means I can hear everything they say from 3 floors away if I put my mind to it) and I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I've become so easy to read.

My sisters adore him, but for the stupidest of reasons: magic tricks. Growing up Normal, Snow at some point learned how to do these moronic tricks with cards and hats with hidden compartments and boxes with mirrors, and my sisters love it. They love him, full stop.

He juggles too. You might've thought seven years would have taught me every annoying thing there was to know about his insufferable goodness, but you'd be wrong. I sigh and accept it because I agree with Daphne. All that matters is my happiness. And his. I've become a bit insufferable myself.

 **Simon**

I will never get used to the gargoyles. I imagine Baz at 5, motherless and half dead (that's the ratio he cites now, though I think he's way off. A tenth, max.), climbing into this monstrous bed (actually monstrous. It's carved all 'round with ghouls and claws and evil eyes) and trying to sleep. No wonder he's had nightmares for as long as I've known him. We both have.

Now we sleep wrapped in one another and take turns waking up with a strangled scream dying on our tongues until we see the other one there and we can close our eyes again. Tonight we wake at the same time. Baz runs a hand down my shaking arm, and I lay my face on his shuddering chest, and then the shaking and shuddering turn to smoothing and holding and my heat flows over his cold and his cold tempers my heat until we are both at equilibrium and fall back asleep at last.

 **Baz**

Simon falls back asleep, but I don't. I stretch out next to him and watch his eyes move under his eyelids. I look around my room, my bed. Simon can't understand why I don't mind the gargoyles and wraiths and overall hauntedness of my house.

He asked me about it earlier today. I was about to say that home is still home even if it's haunted, but I caught myself in time. In the end, I didn't say anything at all. I don't know how to bridge this chasm of homelessness, now that I've become cognizant of it.

I think of the time I asked Snow who named him. He never answered, and I never asked again, because the look on his face as he turned away broke something in me that I hadn't known was there to break. He doesn't know his exact birthday, or even his birth year. He's never had a single birthday party.

As I'm thinking about this he leans over and whispers "Don't" in my ear. I hadn't heard him wake up. I startle, and then glare at him to hide my thoughts. "You really don't need to whisper in my ear. I could hear you just fine if you were down the road, you know."

"Stop thinking whatever you're thinking," he says again sleepily, and pulls me closer. He's worried about me. He thinks I'm thinking about myself. Can't blame him, I suppose. I certainly spent enough of our lives doing that. I can't tell him that I'm thinking about him, either. So I do what we always do when there's nothing we can say, and hold him. So far it's worked out ok.

I must fall back asleep too, because when I open my eyes again the room is lighter. Simon is pretending not to watch me sleep. I poke him with my elbow. "The truce doesn't include spying on me in my sleep." He snorts. "You've been watching me sleep since fifth year. I'm just trying to catch up."

It's true, so I just smile at him. It still amazes me that I'm allowed to wake up like this, next to Simon, watching or not watching him as much as I want. And right now I want to watch him. And apparently, he wants to indulge me. His hand rests on my shoulder and his warmth feels so good as his hand starts to move down my body that my eyes close of their own accord and I reach for him. I'm still not above swooning.

In my father's house, new fears bolster my resolve not to lose control. Fears that I love him because I'm weak. Fears that my love marks me as a disappointment.

His hands are on my body and my breath comes quickly. I'm still not ready to cross every line, but I realize it's ok. I don't need to. I still have this. The rightness of his touch sweeps my fears away, leaving nothing but love.

 **Simon**

Afterwards we're sitting in a happy kind of quiet, eating some croissants that Daphne left for us by the door. (Baz still doesn't like eating in front of people. Except me. I'm not people anymore, apparently.) It's weird how normal I feel in the House of Pitch. Not Normal, though, thankfully. I still can't cast spells (Penny says I can but don't want to) but I can feel the magic inside me and around me.

Baz's house has its own weird energy that I've gotten used to (though I wouldn't say I like it). I've even made my peace with the wraiths, though we haven't told anyone about that because it's a convenient excuse for why I'm sleeping in Baz's room. I'm fairly sure his parents know that we're together, but if maintaining a lie makes Baz's life easier, I'm willing to go along with it. For now at least.

I think he's wrong about how they'll react, though. His dad still scares the crap out of me, but I'm pretty fond of his sisters and I think his step-mum would love anyone who loves her babies. (I never knew babies smelled like that. Like powder and happiness.)

Thinking about Daphne with the kids makes my heart twist in an all too familiar way. Baz didn't get to have that for very long with his own mum. The Mage murdered his mum, turned him into a vampire, took away his childhood and his life. Baz has been right all along about the Mage. The Mage had him kidnapped and trapped in that fucking coffin for months.

And all the time, I was supporting the Mage. For years I was angry with Baz. For years I defended the Mage against what turned out be understatements. I was still doing it here, in his house, while I thought I was helping him find his mother's killer. I remember the look on his face in the library, calling me the Mage's heir. How can he stand to be around me?

 **Baz**

Snow goes from happy to suicidal faster than most people blink. Having been there myself, I recognize the look on his face. Mostly I feel sorry for him, but I also feel a little impatient. When is he going to stop blaming himself? He blames himself for killing the Mage and he blames himself for the people the Mage killed. He's weaving a labyrinth around himself that no one could escape.

When he gets like this I want to reason with him, but I know how little your brain cares about facts and reality when it's bent on hating itself. Usually I just stay quiet. I guess I don't really want to have this conversation. But I'm sick of feeling ashamed of myself for not having the bollocks to save him from himself the way he saved me. Maybe I should lure him into a forest and set it on fire. That might help. Short of that, we can at least take a walk.

 **Simon**

I hear Baz take a breath and I brace myself for whatever he's going to say. I'm equally certain that he's going to throw me out of the house and that he's going to take me in his arms and tell me not to fret. I want him to do both. I don't want him to do either.

But all he says is "Oi, Snow. Let's walk." I wonder if he needs to hunt. We've developed a pretty efficient system. I hold his hand and he uses my magic to summon a deer. He's the only one this works with. One day I'll have the energy to think about why.

Unless he's come to his senses and killed me by then. Which he should do. Summoning the deer doesn't fill me with a sense of power anymore. I do it because it feels like the least of the things I owe him.

But we don't head towards the woods. We head in the other direction, up a craggy little cliff. He knows I like it there. It's cooler than the rest of the grounds, and there's an outcropping that's shielded from view and overlooks an inordinately loud waterfall. (Baz says it's haunted too, and that the noise is thousands of voices screaming underwater. I choose not to believe this.)

When we reach the spot, Baz turns me towards him and puts one hand on my waist and holds the other hand up like he's about to dance with me. Which, it turns out, is exactly what he plans to do. I shake my head at him like he's lost his mind, which is not beyond possibility. He glares at me until I obediently put my hand on his shoulder, and suddenly there's music playing. I'm impressed despite myself and he suppresses a smile. "Sounds of silence," he says. "I've been studying American spells. I've got the accent down now."

"Baz," I say. "Hmm?" he responds, all innocence. "Why are we dancing?" He looks down for a second, then back up into my eyes. "Because we've only ever managed to have this conversation one time before, and we were dancing that time, and I don't know how to start this conversation so I thought I'd try this."

I stop dancing and step back. The music stutters to a halt. "What conversation?" I whisper, remembering the ball, remembering talking about how he can change his mind about me any time. How I am less than him. He's brought me here to tell me. Tell me he's done. Just as I thought he would, just as I know he should.

My stomach plummets and my legs can't hold me. I sink down onto a rock and stare out over the waterfall, imagining adding my voice to the rest. Baz frowns and kneels next to me, shaking the hair out of his face. He puts his hand on my shoulder and I freeze as he speaks.

"Fuck. I don't know what just happened in your head, but it's definitely not what I was going for. Simon. Look. Look at me." I feel like I'm facing my executioner (which I very well might be) but I have no right to deny him anything so I look.

I don't expect what I see. His eyes are filled with pain. I'm suddenly terrified. "What? What's wrong? Did something hurt you? Did I hurt you? Am I the Humdrum again? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Tears start to fall out of his eyes at the same time as his mouth twists into something that might be a distant cousin of a smile. His eyes remind me of that time in the forest, in the fire. Then, all I had to do was kiss him. Now, I'm the monster. "You're not a monster," he says. (That settles it. Vampires can read minds.)

"That's what you told me, remember?" he continues. "You're just a very bad roommate." I smile weakly, but I still feel made of lead, filled with something dark and grasping.

 **Baz**

This is not going at all like I had imagined. He's more lost than I realized. I hold his hands with mine and hold his eyes with mine and will him to listen to what I'm saying. He's able to just will things to happen, I can give it a try too.

I draw on his magic and put it in my words. It's dangerously close to using his magic against him, which I'd threatened (emptily) to do when I was pissed about him accusing me of luring Bunce to my lair to kill them both. Not the right line of thought. I regroup.

"I love you, Simon." Why have I never told him that before? I stifle a hysterical giggle at the thought of how we must look, like I'm about to whip out a ring in a box and propose marriage. Instead I'm just trying to propose life.

"Simon. Listen to me. You're not the monster." Remembering him saying those same words to me. "You were used by a monster. Two monsters. And you killed them, you killed the monsters, for me. To save me." He opens his mouth but I cut him off. This is like a spell, and I want to have my say uninterrupted.

"I know you think you didn't do it for me, that you just did it for the world at large. But listen. You had already betrayed the Mage for me. You were keeping my secrets from him. You were protecting me from him. You didn't tell him anything about the Visiting, or that we were looking for my mother's killer. And in the chapel..." His face blanches, and I wish I didn't have to bring him back there even in words, but I do. "You attacked him because he attacked me. I remember it all clearly." And I do. I need a minute before I can clear the image from my eyes.

"You can't remember it all, Simon, but I do," I continue. "I had grabbed the Mage but his wand was pointed at my heart and he was thrumming with the power he stole from Ebb and he would have killed me. And you were completely destroyed but you grabbed his wand and pointed it at yourself. You were ready to sacrifice yourself, for me." He's listening, at least, and not staring over the edge of the cliff anymore. (What in Merlin's realm was I thinking, bringing a suicidal boy to the edge of a cliff? Sometimes I'm an idiot).

"He killed Ebb," he whispers so softly that even I can hardly make out the words over the noise of the waterfall. "He would have killed Agatha. He killed your mum. He had you kidnapped and tortured. He turned you into a vampire. And I followed him and followed him and followed him blindly the whole fucking time. I don't think I can live with it."

I take his face in my hands so he can't look away, and I push his magic into my words again. "You aren't the villain, Simon. He was. He used you. You're the hero. You killed the only person who'd ever been anything like a parent to you, a person you loved, to protect me. You never denied what the Mage had done once you knew. You saved me. You saved the world of Mages. You stopped the Humdrum by being willing to give up everything you had."

"And it's not like cleaning up your own vomit," I add, cutting off what he's surely thinking. "It's just not, ok? And you're not him. You're. Not. Him. You're Simon. And you're mine. And I love you. And I promise not to leave that poetically unsaid anymore, ok? I love you. Simon. I love you."

I keep talking, not letting him interrupt. "And we get to be happy, Simon. I get to be happy and you get to be happy. No one's using you anymore, and no one's using me anymore. I'll never have to poison your tea. You'll never have to decapitate me. We get to love each other and we get to be alive and we get to be happy, Simon. You and me. Us. Happy. Love."

I'm finally out of words, and strangely depleted, and more than a little terrified. And I wait. I've never wanted a spell to work this much in my life.

 **Simon**

Somehow I believe him. At least about the part of him loving me, about him not wanting to get rid of me yet. I know he's pulled my magic into his words, that he's trying to cast them as a spell, but that actually makes me believe him more. He knows that's not how spells work but he tried it anyway. He loves me. I'm not a monster, at least not to him.

I'm not the Mage. I killed the Mage. And I followed the Mage. And somehow those cancel out. I still see the agony in Baz's eyes and realize that I'm hurting him. And that's the last thing I want to do. And so I open myself up to him, to believing him, rehearsing his words until the belief settles itself firmly in my heart. I'm not a monster. Baz loves me. We get to be happy.

 **Baz**

I see it in his eyes when he finally decides to believe me, and I nearly collapse with relief. Then he gives me a mischievous smile, a Simon smile, and asks "Do you think they have any sandwiches at this waterfall? I'm ravenous."


	3. Finding and Losing

**Penelope**

We moved into our flat last week, and this morning I met my new lab mates. Classes start in a couple of weeks, but labs always get settled early. When I get home, no one's there.

It's nice to have the flat to myself for a change. I honestly don't think I could handle the Simon and Baz show, if it weren't so fascinating. Not just to see them both happy for once. And not just to see them following each other around, as obsessed as ever, but minus the paranoia. The reason it's fascinating is that it's totally unprecedented in the history of Magic. A mage falling in love with a vampire. And the vampire falling in love right back. Or vice versa, or whatever.

One thing I learned at Watford is that I shouldn't always explain things exactly when they occur to me. I have to wait until my target(s) want(s) to understand. And so far they don't. They're so busy enacting this impossible development, they've completely missed the fact that it's happening.

And what it is, is this: Baz is still a vampire, but now he's alive. Fully alive.

It's never happened before. It shouldn't even be possible. But there it is.

His alive-ness answers some long-standing questions about whether vampires are a little bit alive or fully dead, since according to the third principle of conservational metaphysics he couldn't get more alive unless he'd been somewhat alive to begin with. But no one had ever guessed that it's possible for a vampire to get full without draining someone else, and to stay full day after day.

Baz's state answers yet another question, though I'm not sure anyone has posed this question yet: is life compatible with vampirism, or is one the negation of the other? Because Baz is still very much a vampire. Fangs, super strength, needing to hunt, heightened senses. Which is the only reason he and Simon have managed not to notice how completely transformed he is.

It's hard to know what the mechanism is, since it's not just any vampire and any mage. It's Baz and Simon. Surely love is a part of it. But Simon has also poured so much of his magic into Baz, earlier when he was bursting with it and now when he's just flickering. So maybe it's the magic that is filling Baz. But Baz has always had his own magic, so that can't be the whole story either.

I'm studying microbiology and nanophysics at uni, but Normal science can only explain so much. So I've started doing independent research at Watford.

Mum's restored the Watford libraries, and they are filled with every kind of book again. The Families were generous with their own libraries (I suspect that we have Baz to thank for that), and combined with ours, it's a powerful collection.

Literally powerful; the walls have to be reinforced with a kind of Faraday cage for magic. Dad and I designed it, and we have a patent out (there's finally a department of magickal law enforcement, including protection of magillectual property; they're still working on getting magickal social services going).

These past weeks, I've been helping mum sort through the mess of books in the headmaster's office (which is now hers, of course). In addition to being a murderous megalomaniac, it turns out the Mage was also a hopeless librarian. There are stacks of books everywhere, with no organizing principle in sight.

Some of the books clearly belonged to Natasha Grimm-Pitch, and those we set aside for Baz, who will decide which to keep and which to donate to the Watford library. Some of the books clearly belonged to the Mage, and those we turn over to the Coven so they can complete their investigation into the seemingly never-ending parade of schemes the man had going at the same time. And to think Simon and I used to worry about the Families plotting.

But some of the books are confusing. Two of them seem personal, and are sealed shut with a spell Mum hasn't been able to break yet. (Which is saying something, since she's the one who got around the wards that keep girls out of Mummer's house).

Several of them are clearly research logs. It's less clear whose research or what the aims were. These are the ones I'm going through, trying to tease out hypothesis from fact, and distinguish prediction from reported results.

I've made some progress, but I'm ready to admit that I'm stuck, so today I've brought the logs back to the flat. At the last second, I grab the books that my mum can't open. It's time for a whiteboard.

 **Simon**

When I get back to our flat, Penny's nowhere to be seen, but a giant whiteboard fills the common space and I groan. What is there left to figure out? Is she going to make me diagram my wardrobe options again?

She and Baz laughed their arses off the first time we went shopping for clothes. Penny says that it's just that I've never made a choice before in my entire life. I had no choices in care, I had no choices as the Chosen One (ironically enough).

I'd never even chosen a pair of pyjamas before, just wore what I was assigned at the orphanage or what I was assigned at Watford. I've started to notice some similarities between the two institutions. Another item for the ever-growing list of things I don't think about.

Baz is out with Dev and Niall. Or in, I should say; they're over at Baz's flat. We haven't reached the point yet where I join in on these little gatherings. I may love Baz, but I still can't stand those two. I don't know how he can stand them. He insists they've grown up, but as far as I can tell, that just means they're not pulling the whiskers off kittens anymore.

Baz reminds me that he's a snob and a bully too and that he needs time to sharpen those skills so they don't rust with disuse. I can never tell when he's taking the piss. He says that's why he loves me. So I clear out when his minions come over to slaughter waterfowl or mock peasants or whatever it is they do when they're together.

There's a stack of books on the coffee table I've never seen before. Some of them look like Penny's lab journals and I steer well clear of those. Two are smaller, covered in thick paper that looks homemade. I pick up the one on top and start leafing through it. Some pages have dates on top; just months and days, no years. The entries are all in the same writing, though some look more haggard than others.

I'm about to put the book back down on the table when Penny walks out of her room and stops dead, giving me the strangest look.

"Sorry," I say, and I am. "I didn't mean to pry. These were out on the table so I thought they weren't private, as soon as I saw it was a journal I-"

I nearly jump out of my skin as she cuts me off with a shout. "Ha! I knew it was a journal! I just knew it!"

I must look as uncomfortable as I feel, because Penny walks over and starts explaining.

 **Penelope**

Poor Simon. I didn't mean to scare him, or accuse him of anything. It's just that I _knew_ it, I knew these had to be journals. There are stories of journals that are sealed by the ghosts of their writers until the person comes along who can avenge them or solve a crime or something. It usually happens at around the same time as the Veil lifts, though not always.

It's kind of like a Visiting for souls too weak to cross the Veil and actually talk to the living. If they happen to have a journal, they'll seal it and set it somewhere it can be found by the person they are trying to reach.

I shouldn't be surprised to see that Simon is the one the journals were meant for, but I am. Surprised, that is. And surprised too, to find myself feeling a little sick, or sad, or something. I'm reluctant to introduce new variables into the complex equation that is Simon Snow.

To stall for time, I ask "Where's Baz?"

"Sacrificing goats," Simon responds unhelpfully, and then relents when I roll my eyes. "Hanging out with Dev and Niall."

"Oh." Oh! I'd forgotten about this little scheme of Baz's. I'm not sure I approve, but it's hard to discourage him when he's so determined to do something nice for Simon.

Baz's gotten it into his head that Simon needs a birthday party, and he's using these meetings with Dev and Niall as an excuse to go around making arrangements. I've been so caught up with the books, I've totally lost track of time passing. It doesn't help that Baz chose the date at random.

I look quickly at the calendar and am relieved to see "take the cat to the vet" penciled in for the Thursday after next, not tonight. Don't ask why that's the code name for Operation Birthday. Baz has a weird sense of humor.

Simon follows my glance and looks at the calendar too. "What's going on?" he asks, a bit too sharp for his own good for once. "And what's the whiteboard for?"

I don't want to deal with whatever we're going to have to face once Simon reads the journals. They're likely to drag him into some new intrigue, just as he's finally starting to move on.

But I don't want to ruin the birthday surprise either. And I'll have to talk to him about the journals at some point.

I try to think of what to say, and decide to go for the truth. Always a good approach when in doubt. Especially with your best friend. Especially when that best friend is Simon Snow.

So much for stalling for time.

 **Simon**

"It's a project," Penny says. Well, yeah, I figured that much out for myself. So I wait. "Mum and I are clearing out the headmaster's office." I wince despite myself, then try to hide it in a sneeze. Penny is polite enough to pretend not to notice, and she plunges on.

"These are the books we can't designate. This lot seems to be lab notebooks," she says, waving a hand over the books I'd avoided. Wisely, as it turns out.

"That's what I thought they were!" I interrupt.

Penny gives me a look and goes on, undeterred. "And these two," she says, gesturing to the books in my lap, "turn out to be journals, apparently. Mum and I hadn't been able to get them to open, so we didn't know what they were. Now, thanks to you, we do."

And then she stops, finally out of steam, and looks at me expectantly. I never want to disappoint Penny when she's expecting something of me, but I have absolutely no idea what she's getting at.

She picks up the book I'd been looking through, and makes a big show of not being able to open the cover. I think she's fooling, until I notice a faint red glow around where her fingers touch the paper. A ward. Unmistakable.

"Your mum couldn't even open them?" I ask skeptically. She shakes her head. It's serious, then. Her mum's never met a ward she can't break.

I don't want to know the answer to my next question, but I ask it anyway. It comes out more as a statement.

"So the question is: why can I open them."

I leap up and beat Penny to the dry-erase marker, and turn to the board.

 **Baz**

They're so intent on the whiteboard that they don't notice me come in. I shrug off my jacket (it's starting to get cold) and creep up behind Simon. He jumps as I reach around his waist. I pull him back towards me so his neck stretches out and I kiss him along his pulse. Sometimes I love being a vampire.

Bunce looks understandably nauseated, and I step back, a bit abashed. But the look Simon gives me makes up for any social discomfort, and I let myself focus on his mouth and hands and breath for a few more moments until I can step away again. Bunce always forgives us anyway.

There's one sure-fire way to distract these two. "What's with the whiteboard?" I ask, and settle onto the couch, pulling Simon down with me. Penny looks at me gratefully, but then seems to reconsider as she glances at the board.

I look at what they've written while Snow fills me in, Penny interrupting when she thinks he's getting a detail wrong.

"Let me get this straight," I say, irrationally angry, trying to organize my thoughts. "You think these books were left for Simon? Just because he can open them? Maybe it's just that he's powerful as fuck and no wards can block him." Snow rolls his eyes, but Bunce looks at me thoughtfully.

She understands me well enough at this point to know that I'm trying to find a way to leave Simon well out of it. I can't face another descent into wherever it is he goes when his mind is overwhelmed by the shitstorm that is his life.

But she must not agree, because she says softly, "No, Baz, I don't think that's it."

"What about the lab notebooks," I sneer. "Are you trying to tell me that someone from the Great Beyond is convinced Snow is actually the next Einstein just waiting to be discovered?"

I stand up too quickly, spilling tea. I clean it just as quickly with a wave of my wand and a muttered "no use crying" spell. Penny is standing as well, facing me, staring me down. It takes a long time for either of us to notice that Simon's not there anymore.

 **Simon**

Sometimes I feel like Baz and Penelope have become my parents. They're always whispering about me when they think I'm asleep, or looking at me nervously when they think I'm not watching. I feel bad about it. I may or may not want parents, but I definitely don't want my friends to be my parents, I want them to be my friends. And I don't want them to see me as a helpless burden they have to navigate.

It's my own doing, I know. I scared them after the Mage died. After I killed him. I scared myself. But I'm back, and I'm ok. Well, as ok as a Chosen-orphan-turned-fallen-super-villain could be.

I'm hoping that they'll start to trust me enough to turn back into Baz and Penny around me. And I'm hoping that they'll still want me around after they're done feeling responsible for me.

I pick up the journals again while they fight about whether or not I can handle this. It's like they've forgotten I'm even in the room. Neither of them ever used to be able to forget me if I was in a room.

I focus on the book in my hands. The paper is homemade, the kind of thing you'd find on a back-to-the-land, do-it-yourself commune. Though I'm not sure how I know that. I watched a lot of telly at Agatha's during those lost months last winter. I think there was a documentary about a place like that, where everyone made their own clothes and stuff.

There's a familiar cold seeping off the paper, and I can almost place it. I open the book and start to look through it more carefully, now that I know it's not Penny's diary or something.

There are endless boring descriptions of the sky and plants and soil and whatnot. I flip through those quickly. There's a section written in a shakier hand and marked June 2nd that I slow down for. I freeze when I get to the last paragraph.

"He says we are going to be stars, but I don't care about that. I care about being parents, and I'm hoping his fervor will be softened by love once the baby comes. Being pregnant is a little like gardening, and the baby inside me feels like those roses I nursed to life last spring. I feel the same joy I felt when I first saw the rosebuds peeking through the leaves, knowing they were alive, that they had a little bit of my life and my magic in them. That's how I think of the baby sometimes. He's like a little rosebud, bringing spring after the snow."

It all snaps into place. The rosebud boy. He's me, not Baz. The second cold I felt the night that Baz's mum came through the Veil was my mum, not his.

I thought his mum had come back twice, when I felt the cold again later that same night. But the second cold had been different, I remember, sadder. And that second time, she called me her rosebud boy. And she said my name. Again and again. Simon, Simon, Simon. She said something about being stars.

And she said she would never have left me.

I look up and see Baz and Penny still staring at each other. Suddenly I need to get out of here. I slip out without either of them noticing I've left.

 **Baz**

I find him downstairs in the courtyard without a coat, hands in his hair, staring out at nothing. I'm about to do a fast weather-blocking spell when a coat materializes around him out of nowhere.

He can be terrifying sometimes. He still never uses a wand, or a ring, or any other object. He is his own object. He thinks a thing, and it is. It's less terrifying now that he's not likely to destroy half the country when he's angry, but it's still unnerving.

"Hey," I say. He looks at me, and I nearly faint with relief that he responds.

"Hey," he says. He tilts his head back and lets the chilly rain pour over his closed eyes. I walk over and take his hand, and he rests his head on my shoulder. "How are Dev and Niall?"

I'd forgotten all about them, actually, but I say "same as always."

"Tea then, yeah?" he says, as though we're still sitting on the couch, not standing like madmen outside in the London rain.

Snow still makes tea the Normal way, convinced that the leaves steep better without magic. Whatever the reason, it is damn good tea.

"Ok," I say, "Yeah. Sure." And we walk upstairs, soaking wet, hand in hand.

 **Penny**

Simon's drinking tea and explaining to Baz and me about the second Visiting. I'd never heard that part of the story before.

Baz is quiet, staring at his tea as if it holds the answers to all our questions (which it might do, if you believe my aunt Grace).

"I felt the cold again that last night we slept in our old room in the tower," Simon is saying. "I haven't felt it since then until just now when I held the journal. She must have sent the journals when she realized I wouldn't be back in Watford again." _She_ being his mum, presumably.

Something about his theory doesn't make sense. She should've gone back after the Veil closed again, if it really was her. How could he have felt her so many months later?

Simon always teases me for telling everyone else that their explanations are rubbish, so I decide to keep my thoughts to myself until I get a chance to look into it some more.

I'd like to ask Simon to show me the journal entry, but I'm afraid Baz will bite my head off. (That came out wrong. Not bite. You know what I mean.) We're tiptoeing around each other after what happened earlier. But I'm not much of a tiptoer, and Simon was mine first, so I finally ask to see it.

We search together for any hint about who wrote the journal. We go through the book with every spell we can think of, but I guess people don't write their own names in their diaries.

So we just sit, side by side, flipping through the pages. By now, Baz has joined us, and he is reading over our shoulders.

As we read, something, some understanding, is trying to take shape in my mind. I suggest to the boys that we get some sleep and start again fresh tomorrow, because I have the feeling we don't want to deal with whatever it is tonight.

 **Baz**

Simon has a mum. I mean, of course he had to have had a mum. But now she's real.

Though we still don't know her name. We know she liked gardening. And she seemed to be married to an excitable mage named Davy, who presumably is Snow's father.

I can't think of any magic families named Snow, though. He must have been an American or something.

Bunce's face went all funny at one point, but she didn't say anything, which really isn't like her. It was soon after we got to that part of the journal that Penny decided it was time to go to sleep, and we agreed to continue in the morning.

So now I'm sitting on our bed with my back against the wall, and Simon is sitting in front of me, cradled in the space I make with my legs. I like when Simon lets me hold him like this. My arms are around him and his arms are around mine; his head rests back against my chest and my forehead rests on his shoulder.

I feel safe like this, knowing he's safe, knowing he's completely enclosed in a peaceful space created by my body. I can feel his whole body against mine, skull and neck and shoulders, back and legs and arms.

I'll never admit it to him, but I like the feeling of being good. Of creating safety. Of being needed. He thinks that if I take care of him when he's hurting, I'll stop loving him or something, like I have a set quantity of love for him that he needs to conserve. It doesn't work that way. I love all my roles in his life. Nemesis, lover, rival. Protector. And vampire. Can't forget vampire.

Simon's asleep with the journals resting between our arms and his chest. I slowly ease him down to the pillow and slip out from around him, taking one of the journals with me. I pause for a moment, but he doesn't wake.

I don't sleep well at night anyway. And I need to hunt, it's been a few days. (Is that possible? Days? And I'm not even that thirsty.) But mostly I'm a nosy git who can't follow instructions. I want to know what upset Bunce. I don't like the feeling of someone knowing more than I do about something.

I must be more tired (or hungry) than I realize, though, because I'd forgotten about the wards. I get to the couch only to discover that I can't open the journal. Might as well hunt.

One nice thing about living in London is that you don't have to go underground to find rats. They're everywhere. I still don't like being in the dark, shut up below ground.

I'm coming to terms with being history's only claustrophobic vampire. Compared with everything else, it's not that big a deal. I head to the closest construction site, idly picking up rats and drinking them as I walk.

That's another good thing about London. I can drink rats in public. No one looks at anyone else. It's like a rule that everyone automatically follows. A survival tactic for living in a city so suffocatingly dense with people: Don't look at anyone else, so you can pretend you're not constantly surrounded by the smell of rancid onions and the sounds of personal conversations and the wet noise of hacking coughs and the sight of every manner of boil, scab, and oozing flesh imaginable. It's revolting, actually.

Simon always accuses me of snobbishness, and I suppose he's right. That's another thing I haven't admitted to him yet. He wasn't entirely wrong about the Families all those years when he suspected they wanted to reinstate some kind of feudal society with themselves on the top.

Most of those plans seemed extreme even to me, but I suppose I might have preferred Watford without half the students there. Fucking Mage and his fucking reforms. Fucking zealous prick... And then I know what made Penny's face go so funny. And I start running back to their flat.

 **Simon**

Baz is there when I wake up. He's cold, like outside cold, so I think he just got in. Must've gone hunting while I slept. It's not as fun to catch rats together as it was to catch deer.

I don't remember falling asleep. I'm still in my clothes, which is never a good sign. Bits of yesterday start filtering through my mind, and I keep my eyes closed as I let them pour over me.

There's something I know. That I don't want to know. And so I don't know it, even though I know it. That happens to me sometimes.

I give up and open my eyes. I prop myself up on one elbow and look over at Baz, who's asleep. His eyelids are so white they're practically blue. They stand out on his face, and I'm startled to realize that it's because the rest of his skin has gotten downright pink, making the contrast starker than it used to be.

His nose used to seem all wrong too, like it started too high up on his face or something, but I've discovered that it opens up all sorts of possibilities where my own nose is concerned.

I lean over now to kiss his bottom lip, my nose neatly landing just under and beside his, my hands traveling over his body. His eyes smile without opening. I want to put off knowing anything but him as I wake him inch by delicious inch. So that's exactly what I proceed to do for the better half of the morning.

 **Penny**

Ugh. I am not looking forward to today. It's a bank holiday, so by rights I should be having a bit of a lie in. But I've been up since dawn and I'm not likely to fall asleep again.

I don't want Simon to think about the Mage being his father. I don't want Simon to think about the Mage, full stop. But I can't see any way around it.

I'm pretty sure Baz has figured it out by now; maybe he can help me figure out how to tell Simon. I saw him watching my face last night, and I heard him rush in this morning. That's what woke me. He seems to have managed to fall back asleep though, the smug bastard.

I guess it helps to be sleeping in the arms of the person you love. I miss Micah. And he misses me, apparently, because he's going to start his year abroad here ten months earlier than planned.

He's coming mid-December of this year, instead of October of next. I try to hold on to that single bright spot in the face of the fog that's about to descend when Simon finds out about the Mage.

If I can't sleep, I may as well be useful and go get some breakfast. Simon always does better on a full stomach.

 **Simon**

When I get out to the kitchen later, I know things must be serious, because Penny's gone out early and brought me comfort food. Cherry scones.

I slide into a chair and pick one up. It's perfect, soft and still steaming, the tartness of the cherry buffered by the sweetness of the dough. May as well enjoy the scone while waiting for the ax to fall.

I have a feeling I already know whatever it is she thinks she has to tell me, but I'm happy to wait for her to explain it before I have to become conscious of it myself.

"Micah's arriving in December," she says from across the kitchen. I can't see her expression, because she's facing the kettle where the tea is steeping.

That's what she has to tell me? That's why she needed to get me scones? Does she think I'll mind? After dealing with Baz as an honorary third roommate all this time?

"That's grand," I say between bites. "When?" She turns to look at me, leaning back against the counter. She looks tired.

"End of term. He's doing a year abroad. Brown doesn't mind if he starts the year in the winter instead of waiting until the fall." Brown is the name of Micah's university. It seems like a dreary name, but Micah loves the place.

I walk over to her and reach for the kettle. "I'll pour," I say, and I do. She's quiet, but quiet with Penny can be nice. I gesture with the milk jug and she shakes her head. I hand her a steaming mug of black tea and pour one for myself and then break the silence.

"What's wrong Penny? I'd've thought Micah coming would be a good thing." Her smile lights her eyes for a second, and she shakes her head.

"Yeah. No. That part's good."

"Then what?" I ask. "Do you need more space? I can move in with Baz while Micah's here..."

She shakes her head again. "No, of course not Simon. In fact I'm determined to subject you to every bit as much flirting as I've had to endure from the two of you." She smiles again, and it lasts a little longer this time.

"Retaliatory affection? Who knew you were so combative," I tease, and she finally smiles a real smile.

"So then what?" I say again once we've sat down and properly tucked in. I see her glance over my shoulder, and I know Baz is there.

"Scones." he says with trepidation. "What's wrong, Penny?"

She laughs and pushes a chair toward him without getting up. Baz takes it and turns it backwards, arms crossed over the top, his long legs propped against the table's.

"Am I that transparent?" Penny asks.

"Yes, Bunce, you are. Scones are serious," he asserts, popping one into his mouth. He manages to look elegant even with a mouth full of pastry. I stare at his mouth a couple of seconds longer than is strictly polite.

"Snow's right," says Baz, swallowing. "He can move in with me when Micah's here."

It freaks Penny out when Baz flaunts the fact that he can hear everything we say regardless of what room (or country) he's in, so he does it as often as possible.

"I've even perfected a housekeeping spell," he adds, "that will prevent slovenliness before it can take hold. So I'll be safe from him while he stays with me."

"Febreeze and you're done!" she shouts.

"You already knew about it?" Baz looks disgruntled.

"It's an American spell," says Penny. "Micah taught it to me ages ago."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"You never asked. And to get back to Micah, no. Simon's not moving. Like I said, it's payback time. We'll be snogging in front of you two every chance we get."

"Then spill it, Bunce," says Baz. "What's going on?"

 **Simon**

Penny looks uncomfortable and it seems like Baz is goading her, so I decide to cut this whole scene short.

"The Mage is my father. The scones are my consolation prize."

I don't mean to sound so bitter, but it doesn't matter, because they're both more shocked by my words than by my tone. Seriously, to listen to the two of them, you'd think I was in remedial basket weaving or something.

"What, the both of you can figure it out, but if I notice, it's like a dog casting a spell?"

They looked properly abashed, so I relent. It is true that I'm good at not knowing things I don't want to know. But I think I've known this one for a while.

"I called my mum last night to make sure," says Penny gently. "The Mage was called Davy when they were in school." She pauses again, and I realize she knows something else.

"You know who my mum is." I say, willing my voice not to shake. I didn't expect this part.

She nods and gets up and grabs an envelope sitting on our kitchen counter. I never noticed it before.

 **Penelope**

Well, this is going better than I'd imagined. Maybe Baz and I have been underestimating Simon recently. I can see on his face that Simon thinks so, but he thinks it's funny too, so that's ok.

I decide to risk showing him Agatha's letter. I haven't actually read it, but I looked at the photo, and recognized the Mage immediately, even though he's like 16 years old in it. I didn't think Simon was up for a trip down memory lane, so I've hidden the letter for about a week now.

 **Baz**

It's a fairly thick envelope, with Simon and Penny's names penned on the front in a neatly slanted hand. Simon blanches somewhat comically when he sees it, and I take a closer look. Postmarked from California.

Agatha.

 **Simon**

Agatha.

I've managed to keep her on my no-thinking list for nearly nine months. Even when I was staying at her house, with her parents. I'm a champion non-thinker. What is she doing here? Well, not her exactly, but this extension of her, covered with the handwriting I recognize as well as my own. And what the hell could this have to do with my mother? My mind goes a bit fuzzy and blank.

 **Penelope**

Agatha.

Odd timing, too. It is something of a relief to be able to finally show it to him, because I never know what to say when Agatha texts me asking how Simon reacted. So far I've blamed the post for losing her letter, but she's initiated an investigation in California so that story won't hold for long. I offer it to Simon, but he asks me to read it for him.

I open the letter and the photograph falls out. It sits face-down on the table, and we all stare at it as if it's cursed, which I suppose it might be. None of us are brave enough to pick it up. Finally Baz takes it and slips it in his pocket so we can focus on the letter.

So, I read.

 _Hey guys,_

 _Sorry I_ _'ve been so out of touch. I know from Penny that you've been pretty out of touch yourself, Simon, so_ _I_ _'m letting myself not feel too bad about it._

I believe the word I used was catatonic, but why split hairs.

 _I love California. I love the sunshine. I love not being around magicians. And I love my spaniel, Lucy._

Ok, well that's just weird.

 _So it_ _'s_ _been almost a year, and I guess I_ _'m ready to be in touch again. I miss you. I mean, I'm happy to be far away from everything, but it's not you that I need to be far from anymore. Penny says you're with Baz. That's weird, but ok. Not that you need my ok._

 _An_ _yway, rambling again... I_ _'m letting my pen just write as my mind thinks so I can write this letter before I chicken out. "Go with the flow." Convenient California spell I picked up. I love Americans._

 _I got this picture from your mum, Penny, just before Christmas Eve. You were upstairs at the time, talking to your dad about whether the Humdrum was involved in the vampire attack._

 _I don_ _'t even remember how it came up anymore, but your mum started to tell me about her best friend from Watford, Lucy_ _Salisbury. Lucy became kind of a hero to me (hence my spaniel_ _'s name), because she ran away to California twenty years ago and left the whole messed up World of Mages behind. Turns out my parents are still friends with her mum. You probably met her at our house a cou_ _ple of times._

 _Anyway, this Lucy had dated the Mage back when they were in school (he was called Davy, can you imagine?) I thought you might like the picture, to see him before he was The Mage._

 _I_ _'m not sure about showing it to anyone else, though. Helen t_ _old me that there was kind of a scandal about Lucy leaving, and a rumor about a baby. But that_ _'s probably just a story people told themselves to explain why anyone would want to leave Magickind behind. I haven't found Lucy yet_ _, but every time I_ _'m at the be_ _ach I look for her. I think I_ _'ll know her if I see her._

 _Mum wants me to come home for Christmas but I_ _'m hoping to convince them to come out to California instead. If I'm not around for Christmas, I'll come back over the Easter break, and maybe we could al_ _l get tea or something. That_ _'s a lame way to end a letter, but that's all I've got._

 _Sending sunshine from California, along with my love,_

 _Agatha._

 **Baz**

I don't make it all the way through Wellbelove's letter. I'm still stuck on the earlier part of the conversation, on the Mage being Simon's father. I'm freaked out that Simon is taking it as calmly as if he'd been told that Ms. Possibelf's middle name is Emily.

Penny reads something about a spaniel. I'd forgotten all about the spaniel she possessed to find me at Blackfriar Bridge. It can't possibly be same one that Agatha has in California, but suddenly I'm back at that night.

I'd just found out that the Mage was the one who'd killed my mum and had me kidnapped, and then a fucking dog started talking to me in the street. But it wasn't a dog, it was Bunce, desperate because Simon had left to find the Mage and confess to being the Humdrum and accept whatever fate the Mage chose to mete out.

I've never driven so fast. The drive is a blur and then I remember floating up through a hole in the floor and I remember Bunce vomiting from Simon's magic. I remember Simon holding on to the Humdrum's shoulders, pouring his magic into the Humdrum until it disappeared. Saving us all and then falling.

Falling and not getting up. It ripped me open. I was sure he was dead. I remember screaming.

Then I can see the Mage in my mind, clear as if was happening right now. He's covered in Ebb's blood, beating Simon. Simon is lying there motionless on the floor and the Mage lays into him, his wicked fists on Simon's unprotected back.

The man who had my mother murdered, the man who sent the vampire that sunk his fangs into my neck and turned me from a baby into a monster, the man who had me kidnapped and locked in a coffin – that man was hitting the lifeless body of the person I loved most in the world.

The man who had caused all the pain in my cursed life was hurting the only source of love and comfort I had. To say that I hated him doesn't begin to describe what I felt.

And then I remember Simon moving. He wasn't dead. He was trying weakly to lift his arm. To hold the Mage off, to stop the Mage from hurting him anymore.

In the present, my vision goes red. In the past, I rose with a roar, knowing only that I had to stop the Mage. But the Mage was stronger than I was. He would have killed me if not for Simon. Crushed, beaten Simon, trying to lift himself off the floor where he had collapsed, finding the strength to move so he could save me.

I flash back to the Mage bringing an angry, awkward 11 year old Simon to Watford. I remember how the Mage nailed down Simon's unquestioning devotion by rescuing him from the orphanage. I remember the Mage letting people believe Simon was a Normal, with no legitimate tie to magic. The Mage making a big show of declaring Simon his Heir so he could attend Watford.

And the whole fucking time Simon was actually his son.

He left him in that fucking orphanage to rot and then pretended to rescue him. He sent him back every summer to starve and suffer. He demanded Simon's loyalty and obedience because of the incredible kindness of taking him in as a stray. And all that time, it was his own father turning him into a soldier. Not even a soldier. A bomb, a nuclear reactor. Using him as a weapon in his crazy war.

I feel my bile rise and make it to the loo seconds before I vomit up a grotesque mixture of rat blood and cherry scones. I've never been sick before, and I don't know quite what to make of it, and then I black out.

 **Simon**

Penny's just finishing Agatha's letter when I hear violent retching and turn to see that Baz is gone and the light in the bathroom is on. By the time I get there, he's unconscious, and I'm in a complete panic. Did Agatha actually send a cursed photograph? Is she capable of that?

Baz has never, never been sick. Hurt, yes. Sick, no. His eyes flutter open and I release the breath I must have been holding. I flush away the mess, trying not to look too closely at the red-black water, and gently wipe Baz's face off with my sleeve. He's pale, so pale. I'm not used to seeing him this pale anymore.

I lift him with a clumsy upsa-daisy and carry him into my room. He's much lighter than he should be, I think. I've never tried to carry him before. Penny's taken in the situation with a single glance in that way that she has, and run out to fetch paracetamol from the 10 o'clock chemist down the road. Neither of us is good with healing spells and I'm sure as hell not risking spelling Baz right now.

I strip off all his clothes because I have no idea which pocket he stashed the photograph in. He's conscious now but so quiet and so still that it scares me even more. He closes his eyes and his breathing is shallow and I'm terrified.

I leave for just long enough to get him some water so he can rinse his mouth and then I'm back. I have to conjure a warm soapy washcloth because I hadn't thought of it when I grabbed the water. I should've just conjured the water. I'm not thinking straight.

I carefully clean him off and change him into a pair of my pyjamas like he's a child and the whole time I'm whispering softly. I don't even know what the fuck I'm saying and then I realize I'm singing a song from some movie Mordelia made me watch at least 6 times when we were in Hampshire. The words must have stuck.

Mordelia liked to twirl through the halls singing at the top of her lungs and acting out the heroine's parts. Her favorite part was when she would pull off an imaginary crown and fling it away dramatically, singing "I'm never going back, the past is in the past!"

And now I'm singing it too. "I don't care what they're going to say. Let the storm rage on..."

Baz's eyes open and I go still and he looks up at me, dead serious, and snaps "the cold never bothered me anyway," perfectly in tune.

I giggle because I'm so relieved and because I can imagine Mordelia's small face overlaid on Baz's, serious and haughty, turning sharply as she delivers the final line of the song and pretends to throw her cape to the wind.

I actually giggle. And then we're both laughing and it feels good, light, silly. I want that feeling to stay. I'm sick of all this shit.

Let the storm rage on. We're going on holiday.

 **Baz**

Simon doesn't leave my side for three days. And he's singing the theme song from Frozen. It would be annoying if it weren't so comforting.

After our impromptu duet, the pain in my head must've shown on my face because he became a flurry of action, propping pillows and bringing water and paracetamol. (Paracetamol? Seriously? Aren't we magicians?)

I know Simon is still unsure that he won't blow things up instead of fixing them with spells. So I take the paracetamol like a good patient, and am surprised to find it actually works. I guess the Normals aren't completely hopeless.

I thought it was just a momentary insanity, but Simon is fixated on this idea of a holiday. I can't understand it. The biggest mystery he's ever faced is literally sitting on the kitchen table, and he's chatting about flights and hotels and whether we should consider an AirB&B. It's easiest to stay silent, so I do.

But I marvel at him as I watch him out of the corner of my eyes. Where did learn all this? Loving, caring, fussing. How does he know how to cool my fever with a cold cloth and hold my shoulders while I retch and kiss my head when I rest? How is he capable of feeling so much love, giving so much love, when he's had so little of it in his own life?

Hopefully Bunce will talk some sense into him about staying focused on figuring out who Lucy was and what it all has to do with those lab notebooks. I go back to sleep, Simon's hand safely in mine, and I dream of nothing but him.

 **Penelope**

Well, Baz has answered yet another unasked question about vampires: they can get PTSD. At least the living ones can. Or living _one_ , I suppose; there are unlikely to be any others like him.

Baz sleeps for four days and then emerges from Simon's room, crisp and immaculate as ever, as though he's just come from the theater rather than bed. He slips out quickly, I assume to hunt.

I watch Simon while I pretend to do other things, not sure how to pick back up the thread of the letter and the journals and the lab notebooks and the photograph.

He's messing about in the kitchen, baking up some new experiment. He's become an avid cook since leaving Watford and its magic dining halls and discovering that a good recipe has to be thoroughly thought through before it can be spelled.

When I finally approach him about maybe searching for the cottage that Lucy and Davy lived in, he answers airily that the next thing that's going to happen is that he and Baz are going on holiday.

I stare at him stupidly for a moment, then ask if Baz knows about this plan. He nods while sliding a tray into the oven and leaning over to check the temperature and set a timer. He says there's no reason he can't pretend he never saw those journals or read Agatha's letter.

It's too upsetting, he says. So he is just going to pretend it didn't happen. He argues that there can't be any consequences, because life was spinning along just fine before all this paper showed up in our lives. (He's kind enough not to mention that it was me who brought said paper into our lives.)

Simon's plan makes sense in a convoluted Simon kind of a way. He's gone 17 years without solving the mystery of his parents and he says he can bloody well go another few weeks while he and Baz travel. Or another few years if it comes to that. And then he'll talk of nothing but the merits of whole flour vs. white and whether yeast or baking soda makes lighter muffins.

There's no stopping Simon when he's set on something, so I sigh and grab the rolling pin. I'll have to talk to Baz about it when he gets back later. Hopefully he'll be able to talk some sense into him.

 **Simon**

Of course I've always wondered who my real parents were. Every orphan does. I used to dream that my da was a footballer and my mum was a model and they were too young when they had me but they were going to come back for me and take me to live at the seaside and tell me how sad they were to have had to leave me but that everything would be ok from now on.

I'd rather hold on to that sorry story than imagine the Mage writing my name on my arm in ink like he's tagging some bloody experimental specimen before leaving me on the steps of that hellish orphanage for the next 11 years while he built a little army just a few kilometers away.

Penny and Baz both thought I was mental when I suggested we drop school for now and go traveling. I remind Penny that she was the one who had tried to convince me to run away, back when we thought the Mage was the defender of all that was good. When she was scared that he and everyone else in the world of mages would kill me once they knew I was the Humdrum. Or that I was the cause of the Humdrum. Or whatever I was.

She just rolls her eyes and says that was different.

I expected resistance from Baz, who lives for competition and wouldn't want to stop being the best in his year at uni just to go traveling somewhere where he's nobody.

But that isn't even his objection. It's like he and Penny want me to be really angry or morose or something, not planning a holiday.

I thought I was doing something good by staying so calm after finding out that the...

I can't finish the sentence, not even in my own mind.

But they get upset when I say stuff like it's good for me to be calm. They say it's not about being good or bad, I should just feel however I feel. But this is how I feel. I don't want to dwell on the letter. I don't want to see the photo. When I even start to think about it, it's like an endless black chasm opens up and I'll fall in if I get any closer. It's like I'm always just a step away from falling in.

I guess it might've been nice to think about my mum and read her journals and imagine someone who loved me and wanted me and thought of me as her little rosebud boy. But now I don't want to think about the mother who left me with the Mage, even if it's not her fault that she died. It feels like I found her and lost her again in the space of a day.

Or maybe she ran off to California without me like Agatha said. Why would I want to know that? Why do I need to know that? Why do Baz and Penny want me to know that? Why do they even care what I know about? I don't have to solve every fucking mystery.

So I bake. I fill the flat with biscuits and scones, muffins and cakes and trifles, bobkas and baklava and flan and churros and custards, and I don't think about my parents at all.


	4. Conversations while on different planets

**Baz**

I discover that I have no context for understanding Snow. Like this conversation we're having right now. The world has been turned upside down, and Simon insists that we're going on holiday.

I'm gutted by the idea of Simon being used and hurt by what turns out to be his father, and I can't understand how Simon can be taking this all so fucking calmly.

But of course I don't just ask him, hey, Simon, how can you be taking this all so fucking calmly. I try to figure it out myself, and I think maybe I have.

So I say something that I intend to be nice, something along the lines of how his parents don't matter anymore because I love him and we have each other. Maybe not the most original thought in the world, but there it is. And I mean it, too.

Simon kind of laughs and shrugs and mumbles something like 'yeah, right.' And I feel hurt. More hurt than I want to admit.

So I say something lame like what the hell is that supposed to mean, and now _he_ looks hurt and I feel like an ass but I still feel hurt too and he says something like "Sorry, I just thought that laughing is what people do when someone makes a joke."

What little blood I have runs cold when he says that and I stand there like a fish with my mouth opening and closing and no sound coming out.

Simon gets this kind of wrinkly frown and tilts his head like he's doing a really hard math problem and he says, "Hey, Baz, sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm really bad at this. This. I'm. Just. I'm sorry."

But I can't let it go because what the fuck so I say "Do you think I'm such a monster that I'm kidding around about being in love with you? That this is all part of some elaborate plan I have to trick you? That because I have no soul I'm just messing with you for fun? Playing with my food?"

And now he's crying and saying "Please, Baz, no, I'm sorry, please, no, I don't think that, I just, because when we, and I don't, and..." and I feel like such a shit because why am I making Simon cry when what I'm trying to do, what all I ever want to do, is to make him happy, make him whole?

I try to let go of the hurt but I can't. I want to run but I don't. I breathe for a second and then I say, full calm, like he's someone else, or maybe I am. "I have literally no idea what you're trying to say."

He's still just standing there, crying silently now, standing lost like two feet away. Neither of us bridges the space and tears are falling down his face and I hate myself and I hate him for making me be like this. He looks so lost but I still don't move and he manages to get out, "But. We already. We've talked about this. Before. You already. You know all this. When we talked about it."

Whatever I was expecting him to say, it wasn't that. It stops me short. Did we have some conversation that I blacked out for? Could he be mixing me up with some other vampire-nemesis-turned-lover? How the fuck could we have had some momentous intimate conversation that I have absolutely no memory of?

I feel like I'm losing my mind. So I say, "I feel like I'm losing my mind. What conversation? What are we even talking about?"

And he chokes out, "It was. When we. That night. And you. You told me, and I. And we."

I cut him off and say "Snow, just tell me what the fuck is going on."

And he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and he says, "At the leaver's ball."

What in almighty magic is he on about? He's still trying to speak.

"When. You said. You." And he has this look of shame and anguish and his cheeks are wet and I still have no fucking clue what's going on.

I think about just kissing him and leaving all this for some other time, for some other _me_ to figure out, but somehow I don't. I do allow myself to reach across the space between us and take his hand. I squeeze it in what I hope is a supportive way, and I wait for him to try again.

Something's twisting inside him and he looks terrified and my heart is aching and I don't think he's going to manage to say anything else. I think about the leavers ball, about our dance, about what I said and what he said, but I can't come up with anything that would make sense of this.

"At the leaver's ball," I say quietly, "I told you I choose you, that you're _my_ chosen one," and now I'm crying too.

Simon opens his eyes and whispers hoarsely "Yeah. That. You said _that_. And I explained to you that you can still change your mind, so it's not, it's..."

"But I said I won't," I interrupt. "I said I _won't_ change my mind, and I haven't."

"Yeah," he says miserably. "But then I explained it. I explained that you might change your mind. That you can. That I can't have anything like that, like parents, like someone who will never change their mind, it doesn't work with me, because everyone can change their mind, with me, they can, you can, so there's no such thing, for me. I can't be loved like that. And I told about how I am. How I'm less. How I'll always be less. And you said yes, you agreed. I thought you were agreeing, I thought you understood what I said and you were agreeing with me."

At least we're talking about a conversation I can remember. I remember him telling me that I could still change my mind but obviously I didn't think at the time that he was explaining that he's some cursed creature that can't be loved unconditionally. I thought he was just offering me a way out or trying not to pressure me, or something sane like that.

I remember him saying he would always be less than me. I cringe now as I remember how I responded, as I remember joking that it was a dream come true. I didn't think he was serious. No wonder he thought I could tease him about whether or not I really love him.

I think about the night of the ball. I remember all the tension draining out of him after we talked. I thought it was because he understood how absurd he was being, because he understood how much I love him. But it was because he was relieved to have confessed, to have admitted what he thought he was.

And I kind of freeze when it hits me that he thought I agreed with him. Agreed that he's other, that he's less, that he's a void that love can't stick to. I feel sick. This whole time, every time we've kissed, every time we've laughed, that's what he thinks I think he is.

That's what I mean. I have no context for him. I don't know what my words mean to him and I don't know what he's saying to me. His default, his assumed truth, is that he's fundamentally defective. A truth so obvious to him that he doesn't ever think he has to specify it, like an axiom of Simon that can be assumed in any conversation. I don't even have the energy to be snarky about what an idiot he is.

I suppose I'm just as idiotic. It never occurred to me to specify either. It's equivalently axiomatic to me that he is good and that love is possible.

I realize that for all the shit that made up the nightmare of my life growing up, there's never been a moment when I wasn't loved. Even at my worst, my father (my terrifying, distant, judgmental father) loved me. Fiona loves me. Daphne loves me. I've felt dead, and soulless. I've believed myself to be a monster. But I've never believed myself to be a monster that can't be loved.

I hold his face gently in my hands, now wet with his tears, and lean my forehead against his. I feel him trembling and I say "No, Simon, I didn't agree. I don't agree. You're not less. You've never been less. You've always been more than everyone around you. I know you can be loved like that, completely, without limit, because I love you like that. When you said that thing about changing my mind, I thought you were trying not to pressure me, you were leaving me a way out."

"Isn't that the same thing?" he asks in exhaustion. "Knowing you can change your mind?"

"No," I answer, putting my arms around him, trying to calm the trembling, to hold him together, to hold us together. "It's not. It's not the same thing at all. And this _is_ a forever thing. I love you forever and ever, and I will never change my mind, no matter what. I guess that's upside of falling in love with your worst enemy. I already know everything there is to hate about you. And I love you for all of it. And I have for a long, long time. You're a masochistic walking catastrophe, and I love you and you're stuck with that."

And as he cries and I finally let go of my fucking pride and hold him, I realize it's true. There's nothing he can do to make me unlove him. And I realize, too, that there's nothing I can say to make him believe me.

 **Simon**

This morning Baz said something that seemed a little funny but in a mean way, about how I don't need parents since I don't have a childhood anymore now that I have a boyfriend. It stung because it would be like me saying I guess he doesn't need blood anyway because he doesn't have a heart.

Or like one of the rich kids saying I don't need a car because I don't have a country house to drive it to (which this kid, Bernard, actually said to me last year).

Plus it seemed mean to tease me about the fact that no one will ever love me unconditionally the way parents do. It took a lot for me to even tell him that about myself, and I feel kind of hurt that he would use that knowledge to needle me.

But maybe it was funny, I don't know. I thought he was trying to lighten things up after everything with the journals and the Mage and the photo and the letter. I at least appreciated that he was making an effort.

So I kind of laughed even though it wasn't really funny at all. By the time I'd noticed that this was not how I was supposed to react, that laughing was not how other humans would react, it was already too late.

He was so upset, I just wanted to fix it. I explained I thought he was kidding or teasing me or something. That's what I said, because I thought it was best to be straightforward. I even said it in kind of a self deprecating way, like, I'm just trying to be like the other humans, or like, people do that, right?

But when I said that he looked at me like I was whittling a stake to drive through his heart. It was excruciating.

I had no idea what I could have said to make him look at me like that, and I just wanted to take everything back and pretend we never had this disastrous conversation. But Baz was angrier than I've ever seen him (and I've seen him around zombies and sprinks and a bar full of hostile vampires) and he wouldn't let it go. How could he possibly be this angry with me just for thinking his joke wasn't that funny?

So I decided ok, I should just explain why it felt like a mean joke, since I know he knows about me. I reminded him about our conversation, the conversation when I explained how empty I am. After he told me he chose me.

When he said that, it was almost like saying he loved me. It was the first time he'd ever said anything like that to me. I knew I loved him, but I thought he probably hated me.

But that night at the ball, we danced, and he said I was his. So I took the risk of telling him about how I'm nothing, how I'll always be less than he is. It was a relief to know that he knew, to hear him agree. Like a lie I didn't have to tell anymore.

But this morning he reacted like he didn't remember talking about any of it. Didn't remember talking when we danced, didn't remember saying he chose me.

Maybe I'd imagined the whole thing. Or maybe I had misunderstood what he meant, maybe he didn't mean anything like love. It was devastating. I thought I would die of shame if I had to tell him that I'd thought he'd said he loved me.

But it turns out he did remember that bit, in fact he remembered the whole conversation, but somehow he had completely missed what I thought I was sharing with him.

He didn't even know that I was sharing anything with him, let alone that I was taking a risk for him, for us, by admitting to a secret painful part of myself. He says now that he doesn't agree, he never agreed. So I don't have the comfort anymore of not having to hide it from him, of not having to always wish that it wasn't true.

At least the fight is finally over now. I don't really understand what happened to end it, but I am glad it's over. I hate fighting. We wasted so many years fighting. I just want to enjoy not having to fight.

We're both completely drained. We went for a walk, and now we're sitting on a bench in some park. (A park that kinda looks like a cemetery, which it might be. People in cities will turn anything not covered in concrete into a park.) We're holding hands, but we're not saying anything.

I don't know what he's thinking and I feel kind of nervous, like I never want to say anything ever again in case it turns out to be wrong like before. It's like every day I'm failing a test I've been studying for my whole life.

Sometimes it feels like I'm an alien. Or like I'm dead, and trying to pass as human, and I have to study how the living act so I can mimic it properly.

Baz once described being a vampire as being something like that, but from what I can tell, whatever kind of dead he is isn't as thorough as my kind. He's full of emotions and memories; those seem to have more to do with living than a body full of blood does.

It was when we were thinking about how to find Nicodemus. Baz told me about how when you're a vampire everyone else seems so far away, everyone else is so full, and you're so hungry. It described how I feel so completely that I was stunned.

Thinking that he understood me is part of what let me kiss him in the first place. No one else I've ever been close to has known how that feels. Everyone else walks around not even noticing that they have this thing, love, parents, an automatic place in the world. Everyone except me.

And it makes them all seem so far away, from another world, and it's like Baz said. Everyone else is so full and I'm so empty.

At the orphanage, there were a lot of other kids like me. But in Watford, I was the only one. I was so other. Even Penny and Agatha, the people I was closest to there - even they told me I couldn't really be from a magickal family because mages would never have abandoned their child.

I was the only really poor student too. The only one without parents, the only one without a family or a house or a pet or a car or vacations or clothes or a mobile or a computer or... anything.

The one thing I did have was magic, and I had a lot of it. Now I don't even have that.

 **Penelope**

I can hear Baz and Simon fighting. It's weird; they never fight. And they're usually both so controlled. Well Baz is controlled. Simon's just not blowing shit up anymore. I try not to listen, but it's hard not to. I'm a very curious person. And the two of them are pretty fascinating.

I hear Simon explain to Baz that there are two worlds. In one world children are loved and in the other world they're not. Simon says he's from the world where children aren't loved.

This is how I discover the mundane daily cruelty that made up Simon's entire life. My mind boggles at the thought of turning 1, turning 2, turning 3, and no one loves you. You take your first step and no one really cares. You say your first word and no one's really listening. You get scared in a thunderstorm and no one holds you and kisses you and tells you it's ok and then distracts you with a fairy tale or a biscuit. Maybe it _would_ seem like other children are from another world.

Even when you seem join their world, you know you're not truly a part of it. They all have parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles or step-parents or foster parents. And you don't, and you never will.

I try to imagine what it means for Simon to find out that all along he had a parent right there after all, a father who knew exactly who he was and kept it from him every single day for years and years and years. For his whole life. Who let him go on being part of the world where children aren't loved.

I can see now that no matter how close I'd always thought I was to Simon, no matter how many people considered themselves his friends, inside he's been waiting for them to decide that they're done with him.

No them. Us. I force myself to admit I'm part of that group. Friendship, even with love, isn't unconditional. I mean, _Agatha_ broke up with him. There's never been anything he could rely on to be permanent. No one he could trust to always be there for him.

I hear a voice inside myself protesting "Not true! You love him. You would never abandon him. He had you."

But he didn't, not really. That last Christmas at Watford I went home just like everyone else and left him there, bereft. And he never said a thing. He probably never thought there was anything to say.

He told me later (thinking it was funny) that he'd been planning to break into the kitchen on Christmas to get something to eat, because not another soul would be around. I left him somewhere for Christmas where he'd have to steal food just to eat. What does abandon mean if not that?

I try telling myself that I didn't know it at the time, but that's lame, especially coming from someone who prides herself on knowing things. I certainly didn't know that he would end up having Christmas at Baz's. That having Christmas with a family that literally wants to kill you was better than what was waiting for him at Watford.

Then I try telling myself that it wasn't my decision, that Mum didn't want him in the house, that she was suspicious of the Mage and therefore suspicious of Simon. Also lame. I could have stayed with him at Watford. I could have insisted that Mum let him come home with me. Premal was working directly with the Mage and she'd never dream of kicking her son out of the house on Christmas. I mean, who does that, right?

And that's just it. He's no one's son, no one's family, and in the end he can be left so thoroughly alone that walking in to the House of bloody Pitch was preferable. Going somewhere he could easily be murdered was better. I can see now that he's been suicidal for far longer than just the past few months. And I hate it. I hate the role I played in it.

The only thing I can do about it now is not to contribute to it any more. I'm done with leaving him and I'm done with thinking I understand how he feels and I'm done with thinking I know what's best for him.

It feels strange to have been so wrong about something I thought I knew so clearly. I'm a scientist, I ought to have learned by now that the degree to which you believe a thing has nothing to do with whether or not it's true.

Baz will be disappointed that I'm not going to force Simon to see sense, but I'm done with forcing. If Simon wants to drop out of school to go traveling, I'll buy him the bloody plane tickets myself. If anyone has earned the right to indulge in a little escapism, it's Simon.

 **Baz**

Bunce though I'd be cross with her for abandoning Project Redirect Simon. But I'm relieved.

Why did she and I ever think we understood Simon and knew what he should do? Who says that it's better not to keep everything inside? Who made up that rule? And why are we so sure that running away doesn't solve anything? Simon never ran away before, and look where it got him.

So fuck it. Wherever he runs, I'm going with him. Even if it's Central bloody America. But first, Simon's going to have a birthday party. Then we can head to the equator.

A vampire on the equator, now there's a plan that can't go wrong.

I sigh. I hate bugs. And what the hell does one even wear to a jungle?

 **Penny**

They're talking about flying to Costa Rica and Belize and then working their way up to Mexico. I try and fail to imagine the two of them on a tropical beach drinking strawberry daiquiris. Maybe a whiteboard would help.

And then the plan balloons and Micah and I decide we'll join them partway through their trip, and there's even talk of all ending up in California together for Christmas with Agatha.

(Of course the photograph wasn't cursed; not everyone in Simon's life is a raving psychopath. Agatha felt terrible when she heard what happened, though she thought I was taking the mick when I told her it was Baz who collapsed.)

I have to admit, I've been dreading Christmas this year. Last year still seems uncomfortably close, and as the anniversary approaches we're all getting jittery. Christmas in bathing suits at some idiotic American theme park sounds just about right.


	5. Simon's birthday

**Simon**

A couple of weeks have passed since Agatha's letter, and Penny and Baz have stopped trying to force me to deal with it. We've reached some kind of truce (who'd've thought I'd ever need a truce with Penny?) and things have been good. They're both taking my idea of traveling seriously, which I take as a sign of love or acceptance or something. It'll be ok if we don't go, too. But I hope we do.

I come home to an empty flat, and it's nice to find myself disappointed rather than relieved that Penny and Baz aren't home. (Or aren't here, I suppose; Baz still has his own place.)

They're probably out bringing Fiona's cat to the vet. That's what it says on the calendar, though I don't know what the cat has to do with Penny.

I decide to use the time to practice meringues. They're proper tricky, either fall flat or come out dry. I once got them just right and I'm trying to figure out how to replicate it.

On my way to the pantry, I notice a cream colored rectangle on the table and for a second, I freeze. Werewolves I can handle, but I've become terrified of stationary. If only the Sword of Mages could protect me from the post.

I breathe easier when I recognize Baz's handwriting. Seeing my name written in his elegant swooping script is oddly intimate. I open the card and find a single number and a single word. I'm pretty sure it's an address.

It leads me to an old part of London, where the streets are haphazard and the buildings irregular. I find myself at the mouth of a little alley and hesitate. I'm generally ok with dark alleys but I haven't called my sword for a while and I don't know what to expect. I just ran out as usual, not thinking.

When I finally turn into the black mouth of the alley, I find familiar balls of blue fire lighting a path through the labyrinth. I follow the blue lights until I arrive at a door, which I open. (I can hear Baz in my head saying "Really Simon? You just opened the door without having any idea who had called you there or why?" But that's why I do it, because I have some idea. At least about the 'who' part. The 'why' remains a mystery.)

I see Baz inside, and I stand for a moment, admiring him. I can tell the second he sees me. His eyes blink between mischievous and nervous before settling back into their habitual bored/amused expression. He stands up smoothly, a bit like a cat himself.

He looks amazing. He looks like Baz. He looks long and elegant and sexy and crisp. I smile as he steps towards me and rests his fingers lightly on the back of my neck. He leans towards me, and my eyes close but his cheek passes over mine as his mouth moves to my ear. His breath is cool on my skin as he whispers my name and a shiver runs through me. My hands go to his hair and I kiss him, slowly and thoroughly.

His mouth is cold and sweet and I feel like everything I could ever want is here under my fingers, between my lips, on my skin... and then he withdraws and it's like I'm falling backwards out of a pool. I almost tip over. His mouth twists up in a smug smile but his eyes are warm and I'm happy to be in love.

It takes another minute before I notice that we're not alone. Penny stands up and groans "you two are impossible" but she's smiling too. She gives me a hug and says, oddly, "Happy Birthday, Simon."

Before I can even ask, Baz takes my hand and pulls me into the dimly lit room. It's like the room keeps everything hidden until Baz wants me to see it. As the light spreads, I see a table covered with flowers and presents and a ridiculous cake, a floaty whipped chocolate tower with my name, magicked in flames (sans candles), hovering above the frosting.

"Um..." I say. Eloquent as usual.

Baz laughs, and Penny explains. "Baz decided you had to have a birthday party, and that the day doesn't really matter, so. Happy birthday." I look over at Baz. His throat is doing this thing it does when he's nervous (though his face is carefully bored). I squeeze his hand and I smile. I feel lighter than I have in months. Maybe ever.

"It's amazing," I say.

And then Baz transforms into a little kid, dragging me forward and trying to show me everything at once. "How can you think it's amazing? You haven't even seen any of it yet." And he takes me on a tour of what seemed from the outside to be a normal building. He must have magicked it somehow because on the inside it's like being outside.

There's a path through a garden and landmarks from my inner life are scattered along it. Like this tree I really liked at Watford where I once had a long conversation with a squirrel that directed me to the Wavering Wood in time to save three tree nymphs from a giant locust.

Next to the tree is the hidden clearing I love by the cliff near his house, and a (much quieter version of) the waterfall. Then there's the field of wildflowers where Penny and I would practice spells. Beyond that is the shady spot off the maths building that I would hide in when I was overwhelmed that first year at Watford.

I had no idea he'd been watching me so closely for so long. Every detail is a reflection of me, and I'm overwhelmed at the thought of how he could've put all this together. No one has ever done anything like this for me before. Not even close. My heart swells and I squeeze Baz's hand.

The whole time we're walking, he's narrating. "I know you like being outside more than inside. I had to develop three new spell classes to allow all these ecosystems to coexist," he brags, and Penny clears her throat and he adds "with some help from Bunce." She rolls her eyes.

"We're writing it up for the Proceedings of the Magical Academy's special issue on linguistics and ecology next month." Penny says excitedly. Penny takes peer review way too seriously.

"Fiona doesn't even have a cat, does she?" is all I can think to say. They both laugh.

We eat dinner (an exact replica of the welcome feast from third year where I ate so much that Cook Pritchard emerged from the underground kitchens to meet me). Then comes the cake (thankfully they don't sing), and Baz holds my hand and whispers "make a wish" as I blow out the candle-less flames.

There are birthday presents. Penny gives me a silver pen in a velvet box with the inscription "the pen is mightier than the sword." She smiles and says, "I decided you needed a new magic object."

Baz gives me a tiny leather-bound journal that I'd coveted (I thought secretly) from this posh shop on the high street near school that I was too intimidated to ever walk into. How does he have enough space in his brain to store all these pointless facts about me?

"When did you arrange all this?" I ask in amazement.

"Well actually," says Baz, "you have Dev and Niall to thank for that."

For a moment I'm confused. But I'm honestly sick of being confused all the time. So I concentrate, and in a flash I understand. "And here I thought you were stealing candy from babies every Thursday," I say, and he smiles.

Then Penny leaves, and it's just me and Baz. We sit in the evening air for a minute, listening to the night sounds. (He's even magicked up a family of crickets for atmosphere.)

He pulls me from the table and walks me to a grassy spot that magically (of course) unfolds from between two trees as we approach it. It stretches and becomes the football pitch where we spent the afternoon after I discovered that my magic wasn't completely gone. He turns towards me and we're facing each other and I squeeze his hands and say, "this was brilliant." It's an understatement, to say the least. But I'm afraid that if I try to put what I feel into words, it would only diminish it.

He smiles such a full smile that I actually start to glow. He traces my cheek with his fingers and I put my hand over his and for a moment my magic is totally back, humming inside me and spilling over into him. He feels it too. His eyes glitter as he casts "twinkle twinkle little star" and we're flying again, stars all around us, laughing and drunk.

We land back in the soft grass with our arms around each other. The scruff of his jaw sends shivers down my neck. (We've been exploring the erotic potential of laziness when it comes to shaving.) My hands rest on his hips. My thumbs trace the tantalizing lines that narrow from his navel down to where his body slips in a V below the edge of his jeans.

I don't go farther than that. Baz is scared that if we go too far, he'll bite me. It's been getting harder to know exactly where the line is between what's allowed and what's forbidden. At first it was easy. Kissing was allowed, and everything else was off limits.

But "kiss" turns out to be a more slippery concept than we'd first appreciated. It's been getting increasingly hard to define the edges of yes and no. I'd be fine with solving the problem by putting everything in the "yes" category. But I don't mind taking it slow if that's what he wants.

Well, I mostly don't mind. The problem is, I'm not convinced that his hesitation is just caution, as he claims. (I _am_ convinced that the caution is unnecessary. He's not going to bite me. Though I wouldn't mind if he did. I kind of want him to. His fangs are sexy.)

I worry that what's really going on is that he's internalized his father's contempt. I mean, how could he not have done?

But I hate that. I don't whether respecting Baz's boundaries is actually the right thing to do. What if I'm just reinforcing Malcolm's bullshit, rather than helping Baz break free of it?

So far I've erred on the side of caution. Maybe it'll turn around to bite me in the arse (so to speak), but I have a hard enough time sorting through my own feelings. I don't need to pretend I understand Baz's.

 **Baz**

We spend the night in the warm grass and I watch him sleep. (I still love to watch him sleep. When he sleeps, he's like a secret that only I know.) He used to sleep all bunched up, elbows and knees pulled in, curled around himself like a seed.

With me, he sleeps stretched out on his side, his mouth slightly open and his arms reaching for me. I've spent hours observing how he starts to curl up when he sleeps until his arms find me and then he sighs and stretches out again, pulling me closer to him. I love the feeling of his fingers on my skin, his warm breath on my lips. His whole body radiates warmth and I drink it in.

While he sleeps, I'm free to feel awed. Free to let my face take on any expression it wants. While he sleeps, I can look at him for as long as I want. At any part of him I want. I look now at the skin along his jaw, at the craggy peak of his Adam's apple, at the stretch of his shoulders and the landscape of his chest. He never wears a shirt to sleep. He says he's always a step away from catching fire.

He used to be so much shorter than I am, but for the first time in his life he hasn't gone hungry for more than a year and he's started to catch up. I feel a vise of pain close around my heart. I recognize it now as the feeling that accompanies my awareness of how much he's been hurt while I wasn't watching. I promise him for the thousandth silent time to never stop watching again.

While he sleeps, I know he's mine; every inch and every mole, every dip and curve and angle. I rest my nose in the soft hollow under his ear and breathe him in. He moves closer to me, half awake, and his warm fingers slip under my shirt and start running down my side. His fingers leave expanding pools of heat that travel to the core of me.

I lick his ear and he shivers. He pulls my hand to his lips and slowly kisses each of my fingers in turn, while his fingertips trace lazy circles on my skin. My tongue follows his pulse down to his collarbone. He turns his body so the full length of it of presses against mine. I keep exploring with my lips and tongue until he's breathless.

My breath is coming too fast and I tell myself to slow down. Tell myself that I can't have this. I can't even want this. Because deep down, I'm a monster. I'm a fanged beast that craves blood. I'm scared of what I will want if I let myself want.

The beast within whispers to me that I can't be scared of this forever, and I start to move my body in time with Simon's.

Fuck. Yes, I can be scared of this forever. I have to be. I can't have this. I can't want this. I should get up now. I should move away. I start to, and Simon gasps as my mouth leaves his.

He gives me a sad look, and I feel lost. He reaches for me, hands gentle, to comfort me. His fingers on my arms are too much to bear. I start to pull away and he gently pulls me closer. When he speaks, his breath is uneven and his voice is hoarse.

"Wait. We can wait. I can wait. I don't care. But. I need to tell you. I need you to know. You're not going to hurt me. You can't hurt me. I'm yours. You can have me. All of me. There's nothing you could take from me that I don't already want to give you, that I haven't already given you."

If I'm honest with myself, I've always known that I'm not going to hurt him. That my hesitation has never really been about him. It's about whether I'm allowed to be who I am, what I am. And he's trying to tell me that I'm allowed. I'm allowed to want him.

And I do. I want him. With everything in me, I want him. I kiss him now as a lover, not a leashed monster. He can sense the change and he pulls away, a question in his eyes. He moves his face back from mine so he can look at me, and I'm lost without his touch. I don't ever want him to let me go.

But he's not leaving me. He's just waiting for my answer to his silent question. He holds himself back, taut, waiting for me to tell him what I want. Asking if what I want is him.

And so I say yes in every way I know. With every breath. Yes. With every touch, yes. With every movement, yes, yes. He grins wickedly and gives himself back to me.

A long time later, we fall back asleep, and nothing waits for us in the dark but our love.

 **Simon**

I need to have more of these birthday parties.

Baz wakes me in the morning with his violin. He plays this silly pop song that I've always been surreptitiously embarrassed for loving. How does he know all my secrets?

He starts to sing along.

"Well, you done done me and you bet that I felt it. Tried to stay cool but you're so hot that I melted," and here he smiles at me, then goes on singing. "Fell through the cracks, now I'm trying to get back..."

I join him for the chorus. "Open up your eyes and see like me. Open up your plans and damn, you're free. Open up your heart and you'll find love, love, love."

He puts down the violin but keeps singing as he takes my hands and we start to dance in the grass. "Listen to the music of the moment, people dance and sing. We're all one big family. And it's our godforsaken right to be loved, loved, loved."

The air smells like clover and we hold each other and dance. "So I won't hesitate, our time is short. This is our fate, I'm yours."

The words of the song merge with all the words he's ever used to tell me that I can be loved like this, loved without limit. Loved by him. And I finally truly believe it.

The song ends. We eventually stop dancing, but neither of us moves away. He says, with no hint of irony or hesitation, "I love you. And it's forever. And I want you to be mine and I want to be yours. I want to marry you, Simon Snow. I want to marry you and follow you through jungles and hold you when you sleep. I want this, if I can have it."

I don't want to say anything but yes, but I can't start some new forever by hiding my thoughts. So I say, "Um, but. You know. We're teenagers. I don't think we even can get married." I brace myself for his response, expecting him to be cross or hurt.

But he laughs and says "we're only teenagers if you're counting by years. If you count by months, we're past 200. If you count by moles, you're at least 30. If you count by vampires, we're one more than anyone else who has ever been married."

I smile and mumble something clever like, "um, yeah. But."

He looks at me and says, more seriously, "Simon. We don't have to get married now. And we don't _ever_ have to get married-married, like go-to-a-church or walk-down-the-aisle married. I just want to be your family. Not your boyfriend. Your family."

That sounds pretty ok. So that's what I say. "Ok."

And he gives me a little smile and says, "I bet you were hoping there'd be sandwiches." And there are. With him, there always are.


	6. Gratuitous heroics

**Simon**

Penny and Baz are out when the bell rings. I'm startled to see Dev at the door and I whisper the incantation for my sword. I haven't called it since finding out about the Mage, but it comes easily, same as always.

I'm enjoying the feeling of strength I get from the heft of it in my hand when I remember that Dev and Niall helped Baz plan my party. I instantly feel guilty for being so hateful about them. I put away the sword and answer the door.

I haven't seen Dev in a while. Neither has Baz. Baz and I have been so busy being in love that we've kind of ignored the rest of the world. When I'm not actually in his arms kissing him, I'm fantasizing about it.

Now that nothing's forbidden, we've become completely preoccupied with exploring all the ways we can make each other moan. Just thinking about it now makes my toes curl with pleasure and I have to shake myself to remember where I am and who's at my door.

I invite Dev in but he's looking for Baz.

"Aren't you a bit early?" I ask. "Like ten hours? And anyway, aren't you meeting at Fiona's flat?"

It doesn't hurt to remind him of Baz's ferocious aunt. I don't really think Dev would ever hurt Baz, but I just can't get myself to trust him and Niall.

I was surprised when Baz said he was having them over tonight. I think he's been feeling a little guilty about blowing them off after the party. He's missed the last few Thursdays, so this week he arranged to see them again.

Dev explains that he's locked himself out of his flat and Baz has the spare key. I don't like the idea of letting him into Baz's place with my key, but it seems petty of me since he's going there later anyhow.

I figure I can stay to keep watch until he grabs his key, and then lock up behind me. Plus, like I said, it's actually Fiona's flat. Dev may be thick but even he isn't stupid enough to cross her.

I follow him out to his car (he drives a bloody Hummer, I didn't even think those were legal in the UK) and slide into the front passenger seat. I feel a shiver of apprehension but it comes too late. A needle jabs into the side of my neck from behind, and everything goes black.

When I come to I'm freezing. My hands are tied painfully behind my back tightly enough to have dislocated my left shoulder. I guess they wanted to make sure I couldn't go for my sword because they've removed my trousers too, as though perhaps I keep the blade stashed in my hip pocket.

My twisted shoulder competes with my head and neck for sheer agony. I don't know what they stuck in my neck but my throat feels iced shut and my head is split in shards. I turn and vomit on the damp stone floor.

Dev. I am such a fucking idiot.

 **Penny**

It's Friday night. There's no way to know how long Simon's been missing. Neither of us have seen him since early Thursday morning. I was in the lab until late last night, and I assumed Simon was at Baz's when he wasn't here.

But Baz was out late last night with Dev and Niall, and he assumed Simon was at home. I guess I shouldn't have expected him to drop those two once the party was done but I can't help feeling furious with him for not being with Simon. I'm sure he feels the same way about me.

Neither of us even noticed anything was strange until about 4 today when Baz came over for tea and we discovered that Simon was missing.

I'm frantic. I'm totally out of practice with the whole rescuing thing. Plus I'm usually solving things _with_ Simon. And Agatha. Not to mention that every other time something's gone wrong like this, the most likely culprit was always Baz.

Honestly, his family is still at the top of my suspect list, but how the hell can I say that to him? So we're standing here in Simon's bedroom looking around desperately and trying to see if there's any hint of what could have happened.

 **Baz**

Fuck. Fuck. I can't think. Fucking fairies and fauns. Why wasn't I with him? I promised I'd always be watching, that no one would ever hurt him again. Fuck.

 **Simon**

A memory rises unbidden to the surface of my consciousness. I was a kid. 11 years old. I'd gotten into a fight with two boys in my group at the home. We were always fighting, because if you didn't fight you got destroyed, either by the bigger kids or by your own invisibility.

This fight started when a kid spit in my food (such as it was: scrambled eggs made from powder and week-old bread that had been donated by some misguided society that apparently thinks the poor can't detect staleness or mold). Spitting was a common form of challenge in our world, where we had nothing but our bodies to work with.

I stood and smashed my lunch tray up into his nose, which burst and started bleeding through his fingers. His mate grabbed me around the neck while the spitter laid into me. Somehow, despite the fact that when we were found, I was in a chokehold and my lip was split and one eye was already swelling shut, I got blamed for the fight.

That happened a lot because the warden (yes, there were wardens; it was a prison in everything but name) hated me. I was always different. I know why now, I know that it was my magic that set me apart. But I didn't know anything about magic back then. All I knew was that there was something about me made anyone with authority want to crush me.

I was 11 years old, and I was thrown into solitary. They used solitary confinement as a response to everything, from pissing the bed to stealing food to starting fights. It was considered a harmless punishment, I suppose because it didn't leave visible scars. But being shut up in a small dark silent space with no sense or control over when or whether you'd ever be let out is a horror.

I hadn't actually gotten to eat anything before the spitting episode at lunch, and dinner was withheld as further punishment, so I went to sleep so hungry that my insides burned and my stomach cramped and I was curled up in misery in the floor.

That was the first time I went off. I woke up in the center of a crater of destruction that radiated out for a kilometer in every direction. That's where the Mage found me.

 **Penelope**

It's dawn. Baz is a hopeless mess. He hasn't had a single coherent thought in the past twelve hours. I don't know if I'm more touched or furious. Finally I drag him out to his car. We're going to his house. He can't come up with any better leads and I'm too scared to care about hurting his feelings anymore.

Simon's been missing for at least a day and a half, maybe two. We're running out of time. If he's even still alive. I stomp down hard on that thought and focus on spelling the other cars on the road out of our way. I guess I'm starting to get what Simon sees in this whole not-thinking strategy.

I will not think he's dead. I will not think he's going to die. I will not.

 **Baz**

I'm finally forced to admit that Penny's right. With no Mage and no Humdrum, the only plausible villain left is the Families.

What will I do if it's actually Father who took him? Would he do that? The fact that I can even wonder about it means that I believe he might. But why? Simon doesn't pose any sort of risk to the Families anymore.

My mind dances around the thought that the only reason left to hurt him is me.

 **Simon**

I've spent more than my fair share of days locked up alone in a dark, dank room. But even solitary was better than this.

I was never this cold then. (Quite the opposite. There was no A/C and the dorms were stifling, filled with the stench of two dozen angry teenagers.) I think Dev cursed whatever he injected me with, because I'm freezing and my magic is gone.

The stench is pretty bad here too, even though it's so cold that my teeth are chattering.

I never knew that was an actual thing, chattering teeth. I always thought it was just a saying. I've never been cold before, and it scares me.

I estimate that it's been more than a day since I got here. No one's been by, not even to bring water. There might be somewhere in this hole that I'm supposed to relieve myself but I can't stand or even sit, my legs are tied and my twisted arms are useless to pull me.

So I lie still and leave my body and think about Baz. I think about how his hair looks after he showers. I think about the lines of his shoulders and the shadows made by the muscles that rope around his arms. I think about his surprising gentleness, his sweetness. I think about him playing with his sisters.

I think about long legs in a green suit. I think about him pretending to always be bored. I think about all the times I've gotten to see him when he wasn't pretending anything. I think about his grey eyes. I think about his cool lips. I think about his arms around me.

Then Dev and Niall come for a little visit. I must be in the basement of one of their families' houses. (I don't let myself think the word "dungeon.") They laugh at me for not having any magic to protect myself. I realize they'd stayed away until now so they could be sure I wasn't going to go nuclear.

They laugh more as they watch me whimper and cough up blood after a little prompting from their boots. They punctuate the beating with a creative blend of homophobia and fascism.

I really hate those two.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual. They try to make me think that Baz is behind this but I refuse to believe that. If I start to believe that I'm lost. Besides, if Baz was behind it, there would be some organization to the thing. They seem to have no plan beyond humiliating me. Pitiful really.

They leave me with nothing but my own piss and blood and vomit. I manage to wait until I can't hear their steps or snickers anymore before I let myself add tears to the gruesome mix.

 **Baz**

When we get to Hampshire, Penny and I agree it would be better for her to wait in the car. My family is just sitting down to tea. It's Saturday, when we have an elaborate tea in the early afternoon.

Mordelia runs over to me when I come through the front door, demanding to talk to Simon, saying she needs to show him a trick she invented. She thinks I've brought him with me. She gives me a strange look as I tell her I'm alone.

I keep my head angled down towards Mordelia for a couple of extra seconds to regain my composure before I face my father. He's all about composure.

When I walk into the dining room, my father is looking right at me but Daphne won't meet my eyes even as I bend down to kiss her cheek.

"What a lovely surprise, Basilton," says Father. "We weren't expecting you back before the term break."

"I needed to consult the Rydall Concordance for a paper I'm writing on the thirteenth century demon infestation," I lie calmly, slipping into my usual seat and accepting a napkin and cup of tea from a servant.

I don't trust myself to say anything else, so I just sit and let the girls chatter around me. Daphne is still avoiding looking at me. My father asks me questions about my classes and life in London, and I find myself carrying on a bland conversation with one part of my brain while the rest is consumed by barely suppressed panic.

Tea mercifully ends and I still haven't figured out how to ask if they know where Simon is. I can't read anything into the fact that they haven't asked me about him. Father has always pretended I was straight even when I wasn't dating his mortal enemy.

As Daphne leaves the room, sweeping the children in front of her, I just barely hear her whisper "go to the library, and keep your ears open." It takes a lifetime of practice at keeping my face carefully blank to avoid giving her away to my father, who has remained at the table.

I finally excuse myself, saying I need to check the Concordance, and I head to the library. It's directly under their sitting room, and Daphne knows I can hear easily through the floor.

I hear Father walk into their suite, and I hear Daphne's footsteps approach him. "Really, Mal, don't you think we should tell Basilton about his friend now?"

Then my father's voice: "I certainly do not. He's far safer now that that boy can't hold him under his thrall." It's an odd choice of words, considering that I'm the vampire in the relationship.

"Surely you don't imagine that Basilton could be involuntarily seduced, Malcolm." Clever Daphne.

"What else am I to think? That my son has chosen to betray his family and his honor to indulge a childish crush?"

"Don't be so dramatic, Mal."

"Look, Daphne, it wasn't my idea to kidnap the boy."

So it's true, then. The Families took Simon. I feel rage simmering in my veins like cold fire.

Father is still talking. "It was not my plan, but I'm not going to interfere with the Families once they've decided on a course of action."

Bollocks. He's never let anyone but himself decide on strategy. And this doesn't seem to be part of any larger strategy, anyway.

"Remember what we went through when Baz was missing?" Daphne tries.

"Well, there's no one going through that now, is there? The boy has no family."

I hang my head. I get that Daphne's trying to give him a chance to redeem himself but this is taking too long, and all he's doing is confirming his complicity.

Daphne must agree, because her next words are "And what if Basilton decides to drop round at Niall's?"

I'm on my feet before I hear Father respond.

"Unlikely, it's too far. And what, do you think he'll just stop by the dungeons while he's there?"

I'm out the door before the air has stopped vibrating with the force of those words and I hear them echo as I leap into the car.

 **Simon**

I have no idea how much time has passed. I'm still on the floor, shit and blood spread around me like a dark aura. It's so cold that the liquids have frozen into a sickening slush and I keep my eyes closed against the sight. There's no way to protect myself from the smell, though, or the pain.

It's so dark that I wouldn't be able to see at all except that I'm emitting a faint glow. No one has come by since Dev and Niall left. I haven't had a thing to eat or drink since Wednesday night and I start to realize that I am going to die. If no one's found me yet, they're not going to find me. If anyone's even looking.

I don't know if anyone even knows I'm missing except Dev and Niall, who seem to have forgotten it themselves. For all I know they intended to let me out before I died but got distracted by a football match and it slipped their tiny little minds. Bitter thoughts feel good. Better than thinking about my imminent death.

I consider whether I should try to go off. I don't know if I can even do that anymore. But I don't want to find out. I don't want to blow things up. What if Baz is here? What if I'm in Baz's house? What if Mordelia and the twins are here? Or the baby?

Baz can't be part of this, but his father could. His father hates me. Even if it is Baz (it's not) I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want to murder what's left of his family. I don't even want to kill Dev and Niall. I don't want to be the source of death anymore, to anyone, ever again. Perhaps not the best moment to choose radical pacifism, but there it is.

 **Malcolm**

When I heard of the children's plan to teach the mageling a lesson, I stayed out of it. I would not have set such a course of action in motion myself, but I see no harm in letting Baz's friends try to free him from the wretched influence of the Snow boy.

Daphne's been pressing me to tell Baz all along, and now that he's here in the house she's become even more insistent. But I will do no such thing. Let the children work their squabbles out for themselves.

It is right for his friends to intervene. Being queer is all well and good, but it's absurd for Baz to be so certain he fancies boys over girls, when he has never had (nor will he ever have) the opportunity to be intimate in that way with another human. He is a vampire. His nature is death.

A vampire, Merlin help us. When I lost Natasha, I could not bear to lose our child too. For better or worse, Fiona and I kept him alive, and have kept his secret ever since.

Until quite recently, I've never had cause for regret. He has turned out splendidly. Reserved, commanding, superior to his peers in every way that matters.

I cannot speak of my shock last Christmas when he took the mageling in. I didn't know if it was misplaced pity, or brilliant acting, or some ill-conceived adolescent rebellion intended to hurt me.

When their infernal relationship continued beyond the collapse of the Mage and the revelation that the mageling himself had been the Humdrum himself all along... Well, when Baz continued to be associated with the boy beyond that, I threw up my hands.

If he is weak enough to be caught up in the boy's messianic psychosis, what more can I do, beyond waiting for him to come to his senses and return to his duty as future leader of the House of Pitch?

If the Dev and Niall boys want to hasten that process, why would I get in their way?

 **Baz**

I've seen people go into Niall's family dungeons but I've yet to see anyone come out. I can't believe we played billiards and ate kebabs until midnight on Thursday, and the whole time, they'd taken him.

They took Simon. They took him and then they came to my flat and drank my wine and kept me idiotically distracted while Simon rotted in the freezing hell of their family dungeon. Because of me.

None of this would be happening if I'd had the balls to break the Families. I've never even told Simon how right he's always been about them.

I almost did once, when he was beating himself up about following the Mage. I almost told him then that he wasn't completely off all that time, that there was actually some evil in the Families that needed to be opposed.

I don't think it was shame that stopped me. I'd be a better person if it was. I think it was loyalty to the families, a feeling that I'd already betrayed them by loving Simon and that I didn't need to betray all their secrets as well.

But I'm done. I will burn this whole fucking place to the ground. I'll find Simon and then I will set them all on fire.

 **Simon**

The idea that in the end it'll be Dev who bests me makes me start to laugh but it's excruciating and I start coughing blood again.

If I'm going to let anyone murder me, it's going to be Baz.

I try to call my sword, but nothing happens. Maybe because I have no magic, or maybe because I can't move my arms. Maybe because I've passed some threshold and am no longer fully among the living.

There has to be some way. I try to shift so that I'm not lying directly on my dislocated shoulder but pain flares across my back with so much force that I can't breathe.

The movement shakes something free from my shirt pocket and I squint to see it in the faint light I emit. It's the pen that Penny gave me. It can't have been just a couple of weeks ago. But it was. "Mightier than the sword" scrolls magically around its shaft. It has magic, even if I don't.

I get the pen in my mouth and try to move it in some pattern that might resemble words. I'm going to attempt to write out the incantation for the sword of mages. I've never summoned the sword that way before, but it's worth a try. If I'm going to die, it's not going to be Dev that finishes me. And the sword will undoubtedly be faster and less painful than this.

 **Penelope**

When Baz finally comes out to the car, he is bleached white and shaking so hard that he lets me drive. He just stares straight ahead and speaks only to give me directions.

I don't know where we're going but I don't ask questions, I just drive faster than I ever have before. The story leaks out in bits. I can't believe these people actually have dungeons. I always thought that was one of the things the Mage had invented in order to solidify his control over the Coven through fear.

My mobile starts beeping. At first I ignore it, thinking its Micah. He flew to London on the first plane he could catch after I called him in tears to say that Simon was missing, and he's due in about now. He's supposed to call when he lands, and he knows I might not be able to answer.

Then I realize it's the wrong sound for Micah (he set his ring tone to the Star Wars theme last summer). I pull off to the side of the road with a jolt.

"What in the realm of darkness do you think you're doing?" Baz practically roars at me, but I'm already out of my seat and around to his door.

"It's Simon," I scream. "Just drive, I'll explain on the way."

 **Baz**

I could kiss Bunce. Without biting. She magicked the pen she'd given Simon for his birthday so that it would beep her mobile if he needed her. She's in a kind of trance in the passenger seat, trying to find an animal she can possess so she can find Simon, now that she can use the pen as a beacon to locate him.

We're only about 20 minutes from Niall's now, and I start to hope that we might really get to Simon in time. But he's been gone for something like three days by now.

I make the car fly.

 **Simon**

The sword doesn't materialize. I think I've descended to a new level of hell when a rat starts scratching me on the nose. Then I think I must have slipped into some kind of shocked dementia because I think the rat is talking to me.

It takes me a minute to realize that the rat _is_ talking to me, and it's possessed by Penny. I normally hate this trick of hers but right now that rat is the most glorious thing I've ever seen. It (she?) squeaks at me to hold on, she and Baz are coming, they figured out where I am and they're coming for me. It's so reassuring that I let myself pass out.

 **Penelope**

Baz is in full vampire mode, and it's enormously comforting. The world has gone mental.

I don't know how to tell Baz what I've seen but I think I should prepare him.

Simon is half frozen in a pool of blood and shit. There's more blood leaking from his nose and mouth. His eyes are completely sunken in, and the skin at the base of his throat contracts with every breath. I know enough medicine from Micah to recognize the signs of exposure, severe dehydration, and a punctured lung. His arms are twisted behind him at a crazy angle and I don't think they're attached at his shoulders anymore.

He was conscious when I first found the rat, but he's not conscious anymore. His chest is rising and falling shallowly but I keep expecting it to stop. He somehow managed to get the pen in his mouth. That's how he was able to contact me, though I can't imagine what he was intending to do. I think he understood me when I spoke through the rat but it's hard to know for sure.

Each second is an eternity. I use every speed incantation I can think of and start borrowing from Micah's vocabulary to invent new ones. (Faster than a speeding bullet! Vroom vroom! I think I can! A rolling stone gathers no moss! To infinity and beyond!)

I search the car for something we can use to wrap Simon up when we find him. I had been planning to bring him to my parents' house but I realize now we won't have time for that, so I start making phone calls. I fill myself with things to do so I can't spend time thinking about what I've seen.

 **Baz**

It's like Penny's voice is coming from down a deep well when she describes what she saw. My vision is unnaturally sharp and tinted red and my fangs are out and my fingers are leaving dents in the steering wheel. I hear Penny tearing the leather off the back seat of the car to use as a blanket for Simon and shouting into her mobile and chanting speed spells.

Finally Niall's house comes into view and I think for the first time about how the bloody hell I'm supposed to get in there. I realize that at some point on this drive, I've decided that I will bite anyone who tries to stop me. I can't think right now about what that will mean when it happens.

We pull into the driveway and I race to the door. It turns out that I won't have to face the question of what happens after I bite my first human after all. They're all out at some fucking party while Simon freezes to death slowly in the bowels of their mansion.

Penny stays with the car to stop anyone from coming after me. I rip the front door off its hinges and toss it behind me, reveling for the first time in the sheer power of being a vampire.

I've been in Niall's house countless times and I know how to find the stairs that lead down to the dungeons, though I've never actually descended them before.

I listen for the sound of breathing and I follow the faint rasp of his labored breath until I find the tiny cell they've left him in. I rip that door off its hinges too and I'm screaming as I see Simon twisted in the corner. His face is barely recognizable. He's covered in blood and the stench is overpowering.

I'm scared to lift him but I can't leave him here, so I quickly spell away the filth and free his arms and legs and start layering healing spells as quickly and gently as I can. I wrap him up in Penny's makeshift blanket and lift him in my arms. I'm crying and chanting spells and running up the stairs and holding him carefully and everything behind me burns.

 **Simon**

When I come to, Baz is carrying me up an endless flight of stone stairs. He's strong and graceful and unfaltering as he flies up and up and up. The pain in my arms is mercifully muted and I can move my head again so I lift it up and rest it on his chest.

I become aware that everything around us is burning. I don't know if Baz is doing it consciously or not but I do know that he's like a pocket of pure oxygen, beyond flammable, so I start to extinguish the fires as they approach.

My magic is always easy when I'm touching Baz. Later Penny will tell me how we looked bursting out the door towards the car: Baz a tall black silhouette against a wall of flame, me glowing, and a sphere of power surrounding both of us to protect us from the fire.

 **Penelope**

Baz explodes out of the house like an avenging angel wearing a halo of damning fire. For a second it looks like he actually has wings. Then I realize it's Simon's magic billowing out behind them to protect them from the flames. I sag with relief. Simon's magic means Simon is alive.

Baz is whispering an endless stream of healing incantations and I see that Simon is breathing. Micah and my parents are on their way. Micah's an expert in magickal and normal medicine, and my dad knows how to set up a field clinic, and they'll get here soon and Simon is going to be ok. It's going to be ok. He's going to be ok. We're going to be ok.

 **Simon**

There's a flurry of activity all around me but I'm buffered from it by Baz who's enveloping me with his spells and his body and the scaffolding of our magic as it fuses into one monumental force. There's no more pain and no more fear and I sleep with my hand tightly in his and neither of us lets go.

 **Micah**

Holy mother of fuck. What the hell kind of nightmare does Penny live in? It's like there's a pocket of England where the Middle Ages never ended.

As soon as I arrive I grab her and hold her as she sobs. I can't stand to see her like this. I've never seen her like this. All those years that she and Simon were being sent to battle by the Mage or kidnapped by the Humdrum, she's never fallen apart like this.

It's not that I don't like Simon, or that I think it's his fault that he got kidnapped. But I want to get Penny away from him, take her far away from here and keep her away. I want her to worry about papers and finals, not about death.

Anyway, Simon's ok. Well, that's an exaggeration. But he's alive. For now. And he's in good hands. He's with Baz (who's alive! What in Wicca is going on around here?!) and Penny's parents are efficiently erecting a mobile triage stage in the only bit of the countryside that's not engulfed in flames.

There's no way I'm leaving Penny on this miserable time-capsule of an island. She doesn't know it yet but she's coming back to Providence with me.

 **Baz**

I thought I was past the point of surprise but I discover that I'm wrong when Daphne shows up, alone, and starts helping cast a more secure set of walls and wards around us. I never thought of her as having any power, but the space around us quickly becomes impenetrable and every surface sterilized.

Together we stabilize Simon on some kind of souped up cot/hospital bed with a bag of fortified saline attached to his arm (courtesy of Micah). The air fills with the comforting beep of his steady pulse being monitored.

I won't let go of him, and Daphne doesn't ask me to. She sits next to me where I'm sitting next to Simon and she puts her hand gently on my back and then I'm leaning into her and crying like I'm four years old. She lets me cry, and I can't stop. She rubs my back and smooths my hair and kisses the top of my head, and I cry.

When I'm finally still, she brings over a blanket and lays it over me and Simon. She's spelled the cot big enough for us both and I lie down carefully next to him and we sleep hand in hand.

 **Simon**

I wake up screaming and Baz is there and he holds me until my terror ebbs. I can't seem to get warm and the memory of vomit and shit turns my stomach and I retch but there's nothing left inside me to come out.

I notice the thin plastic tube running into the crook of my arm from a bag hanging on a makeshift hook. Micah must be here. I've never known any other magician borrow from Normal medicine like this.

Baz is staring at me intently, a question in his eyes, so I try to smile at him but I can't. I just start to cry instead.

Everything hurts and I'm still not sure that I'm not about to die. Baz looks fierce and sad and I feel safe enough with him here to close my eyes. But my tears won't stop and I let Baz hold my face in his hands and I wait to see if this will ever be over.

 **Baz**

Waking to his face beside mine on the bed is a miracle. But he's shattered and there isn't enough fire in the world to match the rage pulsing through me.

He's been sleeping on and off. He wakes up screaming a few times, and each time my heart wrenches and I sing him back to sleep. "No more, no more. Our time is short. I'm yours."

 **Simon**

Open up your eyes and see like me. Open up your plans and damn, you're free. Open up your heart and you'll find the sky is yours.

 **Baz**

Simon's a little better today (by which I mean we're pretty sure now that he won't die) and Penny and I think it's safer to move him than to stay where we are.

Daphne's chartered a jet to fly the four of us to Boston. The situation hasn't exploded yet, but there's an excellent chance that the Devs or the Nialls will soon report me to the Coven as a vampire. We need to leave the country before that happens.

Penny's been planning to move to the States to be with Micah anyway, so they've just moved up their plans by a few months. Ok, years.

Everything's happening so fast, but it still feels like I can't get away from here fast enough.

 **Micah**

Of course I have to be the one to explain to them that Simon flying this soon is out of the question. He's lucky to be alive. It's ok to drive, but flying is just stupid. This continent ought to be big enough to hide him for a few weeks until he's stronger.

They're panicked because the families are mounting a case against Baz after he stole their hostage and burned their estates to ash.

It's hard for me to imagine that Baz is truly in any danger. Surely his father will find a way to shield him. I mean, what's the point of being the ruling class if you can't buy off the fucking Coven?

But it turns out that Baz and his father haven't even spoken since Simon was found. His dad won't acknowledge that anything fucked up has happened, and Baz can't forgive him. Which I can understand. But his step-mum's here, so there's more going on than meets the eye. Not my problem, anyway.

I make the reasonable suggestion that Baz leave the country without Simon. His face turns vicious and for a second I'm truly terrified that he's going to bite me. But then his face crumples and his whole body sags and then I'm terrified that I've killed him.

Can a vampire die of a broken heart? I have to remember to add that one to Penny's List of Questions Raised by the Existence of Baz.

They give up on flying and decide that the continent is in fact big enough to hide the both of them.

Daphne has cousins who own a warded country house in southern France, and that's where they head. I'd never met Daphne before, but she kind of reminds me of Penny. She's a force of nature. I'm glad she's on our side. I thought we'd reached the point where there only was one side, but I was obviously wrong.

Penny wants to go with them but I'm worried about her. I convince her they need space, though I really just want to keep her far away from Simon for as long as I can.

 **Penelope**

I feel kind of superfluous. Baz won't let Simon out if his sight. Simon doesn't spend much time awake. Micah is always distracted, monitoring Simon's pulse, CO2 levels, and breathing rate, and adjusting his antibiotics and electrolytes and morphine. Daphne has a spell regimen set up around the clock, and her healing spells are so precise that I don't want to interfere.

After those first terrible minutes when he used every breath to weave medical incantations, Baz let Daphne take over. He's not doing great. He blames himself for all of it. For leaving Simon alone that night (which is absurd), for not opposing the families sooner (which I kind of understand), and for being friends with Dev and Niall (which is just hard to think about).

Apparently, Dev and Niall have been at loose ends since leaving school. With no war to plan, no classes to go to, and no need to work, they had a lot of time to brood about Baz's perceived desertion.

They were furious when they found out Baz hadn't just befriended Simon, but fallen in love with him. Which they didn't figure out until the birthday party. It's not clear why they decided to kidnap Simon, whether they were intending to punish him or Baz. Either way, they succeeded spectacularly.

I can't believe that after what they've done to Simon, it's Baz who has to worry about the Coven coming after him. Turns out he was right all along that the Coven court isn't always concerned about actual facts.

So it's easy for me to agree with Micah to move to America. And it's easy for me to agree to stay in London with him while Baz and Simon relocate to France. I'll finish out the term and start the process of transferring to MIT. And I'll probably show Micah the journals and lab notebooks. He might see something I've missed.

I agree to stay, but it makes me uneasy to watch Simon leave. I want to hold on to him and never let him go.

 **Simon**

They kept me sedated for more than a week, because I kept screaming and thrashing about and ripping out the IVs and disrupting the spells. Micah decided it would be better to keep me out of it for a while.

I'm in no position to mind, though I don't like the idea of losing more time. And I don't like the idea of being kept unconscious. And I don't like the idea of my brain being scrambled by drugs.

I guess I do mind.

Micah seems to have left. Or maybe it's me who left. Either way, I've finally been coming out of the drugged sleep over the past day or two. My eyes still won't open, but I can hear and feel things again.

As far as I can tell, the only person with me is Baz. He hasn't let go of me the whole time we've been here. Wherever "here" is.

When my eyes finally open, I'm in a big light-filled room, lying with Baz beside me in a huge bed on a pale wood frame. Everything in this room is pale wood and beige canvas. It's about as close to the opposite of Baz's parents' house that I can imagine, so I guess it's not theirs.

I find out later that I'm in France, at the house where Daphne spent the summers with her cousins growing up. No one seems to live here anymore, though; we have the house and grounds to ourselves.

Baz hears my eyelids open and he's awake in an instant. He leans over me, his grey eyes staring down at mine, his face a strange mask of agony and joy. I guess that's love in a nutshell, agony and joy. And strange.

"Simon," he says, and his voice sounds hoarse. "Simon." His tears are falling on my face and I can't tell which are his and which are mine as they fall down my cheeks and behind my ears and pool on the pillow my head is on. I can't move my head at all so the tears just fall and soak the pillow.

He helps me sit up. We're both silent. There's too much to say and nothing to say. I guess I just don't know what to say. But I'm used to not knowing what to say, and we're ok being quiet together. So we sit there, hand in hand, and say nothing at all.

 **Baz**

This time when he opens them, Simon's eyes are clear. It's the first time he's been really conscious since I found him. When I say his name, it's an offering of thanksgiving. When I say it again, it's a plea for forgiveness. I don't say it a third time.

He doesn't let go of my hand. It's good to sit together, silent but conscious.

As he starts to fall back asleep, I shift him so he's in front of me. My arms around him, his head resting on my chest, he sleeps. I want to hold him like this forever. I will hold him like this for as long as he lets me.

I don't know what to expect when he finally emerges completely from all the healing spells and Micah's drugs. Everything that happened to him is my fault. The list is clear in my head: The families, the dungeons, my father. Dev and Niall. And me. He loved me. And this is what happened. And it's my fault.

 **Simon**

I'm a mess. My body doesn't have enough strength to even sit up on its own. I'm scared of everything. Everything makes me cry. I try to remember if I've ever felt this way before.

I know I've been messed up before, but in the past, I'd always kind of blocked out the aftermath of every injury and battle. I'm usually on my own for it. There's never been anyone before who sat at my side and cried at my pain and held me so I could sleep. It fuses me to the present in a way I'm not used to. It means both that I can't escape from the moment, and that I don't need to.

 **Baz**

It's like watching a fast-forwarded version of a child growing up. He gets strong enough to sit, then to stand, then to walk, in a couple of days. Once he can walk, we go outside, and he says his first word. Baz. Then more words come, all nouns at first. Sun, grass. Tea. Within a week, he's more or less talking (to the extent Simon ever talked, which was admittedly never his strong suit).

Daphne comes every few days to check on him (and on me, I suppose). She slowly starts undoing the spells, now that his body is healed. She does it carefully, removing them one at a time over a couple of weeks, waiting each time until she's confident there's been no regression before undoing the next one.

But there's no regression. The internal bleeding has stopped. His broken ribs have set. His diaphragm is rebuilt, and his lungs are whole. The tendons in his shoulders have reknit. The bruises have faded (so many fucking bruises). The skin around his wrists and ankles has grown back, the sores on his legs have healed, the frostbite has receded, the bones of his fingers reformed.

His entire right hand had been pulverized. It's like someone froze it brittle and then stomped on it with their boot. Which, I imagine, is exactly what happened. Micah reassured me that he probably didn't even feel it because his arms were so tightly bound that he was certain to have lost all feeling in his hands. That's Micah's idea of being reassuring.

The walls of his heart have recovered (apparently when you starve, your body starts to digest its own heart). His vocal cords have healed (the thought of him in that pit screaming enough to damage his vocal cords makes me so angry that the rug next to the bed bursts into flames. I quickly 'make a wish' it out before Simon can notice).

His lymph nodes have refilled. His blood... I can't think about blood. Haven't gone to hunt since this started. A month, give or take. I've been making do with what I can find close enough to grab. Anyway, all his T cells and platelets and whatever are back.

The list goes on: his bilirubin levels have returned to normal range, his potassium levels have stabilized, his CO2 consumption is down, and more things I don't understand well enough to recite.

I can't believe how much damage they did to his body in three days. I still don't know how much damage they've done to his mind, or his soul.

If I'd listened to Penny immediately, if we'd gone straight to my father and demanded to know where Simon was, could I have spared him any of the pain he went through? Would he have been free on Friday instead of Saturday? The questions eat through me like acid.

I won't let go of his hand. I'm grateful for every minute of every day he lets me be with him. Alive. Alive.

 **Simon**

Being outside is like, well, like magic, I suppose. I start to re-enter my body. It's ok to do now, it doesn't hurt anymore, and it seems to work like before, except that it gets so tired so quickly.

Then my magic starts coming back, flowing into me and out of me, and I'm whole again. I'm ok. I'm alive. I'm ok. It's ok.

I don't have to tell Baz that my magic is back, because he's right next to me, and he sees it. Then he's smiling for the first time I can remember in forever and so am I. Smiling feels great. So I do it for a little longer. Then I kiss Baz, and that feels great. So I do it for a little longer, too.

 **Baz**

I can see it the moment Simon's magic comes back. It'slike a light goes on behind his eyes, and he smiles. It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. So I smile too. And then he kisses me. He must know it was Dev and Niall. I still don't know the half of what he went through. But he kisses me. It's my fault, all of it, and he kisses me anyway.

 **Simon**

I can eat again, and I'm ravenous. I have to eat in tiny amounts at first. Then carefully calibrated increases dictated from afar by Micah or Daphne every day. But I can cook and bake as much as I want. The kitchen here is huge, and everything - the eggs, the milk, the aubergines and tomatoes, nothing is more than a few hours old. It's brilliant.

Baz is quiet, too quiet. And he's too grey. I don't think he's really eaten (food or blood) since this started. And his eyes have this angry sadness in them that didn't used to be there.

The plus side of having (more than once) felt like that myself is that I am confident I can navigate the situation. So I suggest we walk in the countryside. I really want him to hunt, but first I want him to know this isn't his fault. Any of it. If he was able to get me to believe that, I can do it too.

 **Baz**

He's infuriating. He uses all my own words against me. (Fine. Maybe 'against' isn't quite the right word.) He tells me that I'm not the monster. Dev and Niall are the monsters. They used me, and I'm not them. He tells me that I defied my father and the Families, to save him. I burned their world to ash to save him. I'm not the monster.

There's a disturbing symmetry that's obvious once he's pointed it out. Each of us has been kidnapped by someone close to the other. Each of us feels like it's our fault that the other suffered. Each of us feels like it's not the other one's fault.

To forgive the other, we have to be willing to forgive ourselves. And if there's nothing to forgive the other, we have to accept the logic that there must be nothing to forgive ourselves.

I point out the asymmetries. I may not be Dev and Niall, but I am part of the Families. I kept the knowledge I had secret, about the Families and their dungeons. He tells me that I'm being idiotic. (Stealing my lines again.)

Those are all symmetries, not asymmetries, he insists, and points them out one by one. He was part of the Mage's inner circle. He kept the things he saw secret, the Mage's men and their trucks of stolen treasures. He knew the Mage was the dictatorial general of a private army. But he trusted him not to be evil.

He says that I knew my friends' parents had dungeons. But I didn't think my friends were evil. It's all even-steven (a phrase he's gotten from some American comic book Micah gave him in third year).

Then I quietly confess to the fact that Penny had wanted to go to Hampshire immediately, as soon as we realized he was missing on Friday afternoon, but I didn't want to believe my family would know he was taken and not do anything to stop it. The hours it took for her to convince me were hours he suffered that I could have prevented if I hadn't been unwilling to face the dark truth about my own family.

I can't even look at him as I admit to this, to the guilt that is surely mine alone. I don't know what he'll do now that he knows how much my cowardice and stubbornness cost him.

But he just takes my face gently in his hands, and turns it so I have to face him. I still can't bear to look at him.

He takes my hands and brings them softly to his lips and he says that there's no way to know what would have happened. He says that if I had burst into my parents' house a day earlier demanding to know where he was, I may never have found him at all. My father was never going to tell us, and Daphne might not have defied him on Friday. Or her ruse might not have worked. Or they might not have been home.

He reminds me that he felt the same way when he found out that all the time I'd been missing last fall, he could have been saving me instead of prowling around imagining the plots I was hatching.

I'm not convinced, but he pulls me to him and holds me as I sob and he tells me there will always be doubts we can use to torment ourselves, but all that does is keep the pain going into the future, instead of letting it remain in the past where it belongs.

His philosophy is a strange mix of knowing and not knowing, of being fully in the present when the present is good and hiding from it until it gets better when the present is bad.

Then he tells me that while he was trapped down there, he thought about me. That he survived it by thinking about me. And so I tell him about the coffin, about how I got through that by thinking about him. He's surprised, since we were technically still enemies at that point.

Then I'm telling him more. For the first time, I'm able to tell someone what happened to me. I tell him about how the numpties would open the coffin every few days and I would hope that maybe it was finally over, but they would just throw in a cup of semi-congealed blood with a fucking bendy straw to keep me alive. Or dead. Or whatever I am.

I tell him about how I still thought, every fucking time the lid opened, maybe this time it's over. About what it was like to get that cup of blood every time instead. Week after week after endless week. About what it was like to choke down the revolting liquid. How they never gave me water, or food, so I was conscious but in agony. How time lost all meaning and it seemed I had always been in that coffin and I would always be in it, that there was nothing else.

He tells me about Dev and Niall kicking him until he was choking on his own blood, and all the things they said as they did it. He tells me about being cold, so cold, when he's always been so warm. He tells me about feeling his cheek frozen to the floor in a puddle of blood. He tells me how he couldn't move at all, not even to get away from his own vomit. About the humiliation of sitting in his own filth, unable to move.

And I tell him how that's what happened to me, too. There was nowhere to move, nowhere to move at all in that coffin. I lay there for six weeks covered in shit and piss and blood.

And they kept me alive and I wished they wouldn't, I wished they would just let me die. So I'd leave my body and think of him. And he tells me he wished he could die too. When he called Penny he'd been trying to call his sword so he could die. But all he could do to escape was to leave his body and think of me.

And I realize that we really do match, just not in the ways I used to think. That the way I feel, the helpless fury I feel about someone hurting him, the protective roar inside me that won't let me leave his side even though I expect him to hate me for what he went through- he feels all those same things, but towards me. And I know with complete certainty that I don't blame him or hate him. So I have no choice but to believe that he doesn't blame me or hate me either.

With a jolt, I also realize we're talking about suffering without shame. And something inside me shifts, releasing a crushing weight. All I want is to make his life sweet again, to see him smile. And to let him do the same for me, because that that's all he wants too.

And I want to hunt. Simon's right. I need to drink.

He's immature enough to still find the whole thing cool rather than repulsive. I love the feeling of his magic moving through me. I can see in his face that he loves it too, he loves the power he has, which is new.

So I drink and I drink and I drink. And I hold him and let him hold me. And we both start to get warm again, even as the snow begins to fall.

 **Simon**

Baz and I allow ourselves to live in the frozen present. We let go of all the ways we've failed each other, and hold on to the truth that we're not failing right now.

We kiss whenever we want, wherever we are. We have the house and gardens and fields and woods to ourselves and we rediscover one another. We rediscover life and pleasure and joy.

It's taken me so long to recover that it's already the middle of December. There's no point in trying to rush off to California for Christmas. And I have what I wanted, a beautiful quiet place where Baz and I are completely removed from the UK and everything in it.

Daphne decides to bring the girls out here to the country and stay through Christmas. And Penny and Micah are going to join us on Christmas Eve and stay through New Years.

I don't know what's happening with Baz's dad. I can't imagine him staying in London instead of having Christmas with his family, but I also can't imagine what will happen when he and Baz are in the same room.

Baz told me all about how his father knew I'd been taken and knew exactly where I was and didn't tell him. But I don't care. I was already terrified of the man. I already knew he hated me, so I find it easy to forgive this particular trespass.

Baz says I can't forgive someone who shows no remorse, it's like semantically impossible or something. Not to mention emotionally and morally.

When he says morally, I raise an eyebrow at him (I'm rather proud of how good I've gotten at that), and he concedes "Ok, maybe morally. But the rest still holds. And how you feel doesn't count."

I start to object (do I even need to object?!) and he quickly says "that's not what I mean. What I mean is, you've basically forgiven Dev and Niall too. So who you are and are not willing to forgive is not a bar the rest of us need to aim for."

I haven't exactly forgiven Dev and Niall. If I ever see them again I will certainly feel something that bears no resemblance to forgiveness. It's just that I don't want to think about them, I don't want them to have earned any space in my head. I want to put them away in England and leave them there forever. It's Baz's choice whether he wants to leave his father there forever too, so I'm no help at all (his words, not mine).


	7. Family matters

**Simon**

I'm excited to cook for Christmas. I've started drawing up menus and talking to local farms (through Baz, who of course is fluent not only in French but in the regional dialect spoken by the farmers. They adore him as a result, and save all their best produce and milk and eggs and meat for us. I love when other people love Baz.)

Daphne and the girls arrive. Baz has decided we need to stop calling them 'the girls' because they are all individual people. I don't laugh at him, but only because I'm nice. And because I like this Baz who thinks of his sisters as people. People named Mordelia, Philomena, Emmeline and Imogene. I'm not even supposed to refer to Phil and Em as 'the twins,' or call Genie 'the baby.'

It's nice to have them around. I liked being alone with Baz, but I like people (some people, at least) and it's fun to hear stampeding feet and gurgly laughs and snarky back-talk (Mordelia is experimenting with contempt, though she's only 7).

The little ones seem to know that something about Baz has changed. They used to leave a wide space when they had to walk by him. Now whenever he's sitting down, they find him and snuggle up to him and demand that he read them stories. Whenever he's standing, they climb on him and beg him to throw them high in the air or to let them put their tiny feet on his giant ones and give them a ride just by walking around. He still pretends to be bored but his eyes shine and his mouth is always smiling now.

Mordelia has amassed an impressive collection of magic trick paraphernalia and I spend hours showing her how to saw things in half and make rabbits appear. It's convenient that the countryside has so many obliging rabbits. And that the household has an obliging vampire. (Though at first Baz said he's had enough of magic rabbits to last a lifetime. I argued that since these rabbits weren't 10 feet tall and hadn't emerged with glowing eyes and poisonous fangs from a children's mural, he was safe.)

 **Micah**

Penny insists that we're going to France to have Christmas with Baz and Simon. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons, not least of which is that it'll break her parents' hearts. Then there's the fact that Pitch is a vampire and Snow is a bomb waiting to go off (when he isn't busy being a walking magnet for every psychopath and dark creature in the realm).

Penny is way angrier with me when I express all this than I'm expecting. She goes into this whole thing about how last Christmas her mom wouldn't let Simon come even though she would've let Premal come. I point out that Premal didn't come home last year, not to mention the fact that Premal is her mom's son, and Simon isn't. She gets even angrier and says that's exactly the point, that now she's Simon's family too and she's not going to abandon him again like last year.

How is it abandoning him when he's with the whole Pitch clan in the French fucking countryside? And in what way is she Simon's family? She says that if Premal was married and living in the countryside no one would be upset if she spent Christmas with him. But Simon's not her brother, and Snow and Pitch aren't two newlyweds setting up a home in the wilderness. We're just a bunch of teenagers for fuck's sake.

But Penny is so upset with me that I back down. I don't want to lose Penny over Simon. I mean, I used to worry about that a lot, but more along the lines of them sleeping together. I'm now pretty secure that that won't happen. But Penny's so protective of him, it's like getting between an alligator and her babies. (Not lions and cubs. I'm from Florida. Deal with it.)

So, we're going to France and hurting her family so that we can hang out with the dynamic duo and pretend to be their family. I mean, I don't even celebrate Christmas (I'm Jewish) so I don't really care, do I?

(Great. Now I'm starting to end my sentences with rhetorical questions. Next thing you know I'm going to be drinking tea. Or eating marmite. Yuck and double yuck.)

 **Baz**

I've gotten completely out of practice with maintaining a blank air of amused condescension. I never realized how much energy went into it. It was as natural as breathing growing up. (Not that my personal version of breathing is all that natural. I can't even fog up the glass when it's freezing outside and the fire is on inside. Simon thinks this is hilarious.)

Morphilemmogene (that's what I've come up with for referring to the girls; Simon's right, trying to say all four of their names every time I want to refer to them is mental) are transparently more at ease with me this way. But there's no way I'm going to spend time with Father with my face covered in feelings.

Who am I kidding. There's no way I'm going to spend time with Father, full stop. But I can't see a solution. Daphne is adamant that she and the girls are staying through Christmas. Simon is over the moon about it. And it's Daphne's fucking house. Or her cousins' or something. Same difference.

 **Malcolm**

Daphne is insisting that I apologize to Baz before Christmas. She has the hysterical notion that if I don't, I will lose Baz forever. That I may already have lost him.

I have nothing to apologize for. At every turn, I have acted only on behalf of Baz's best interests. As I saw them, Daphne amends. Perhaps. But am I to be blamed for what I did not know?

It is true that the photographs she emailed me of what the boys did to the mageling are repugnant. Leaving a child to starve to death, even one as objectionable as Snow, is reprehensible behavior not worthy of the Families. I will leave it to Dev and Niall to discipline their sons. It is not my place. And it is certainly not the Coven's place.

I discreetly compensate the two families for the damage my son caused to their property. We all know these country houses represent only a tiny fraction of their wealth, but the same is true of me, so I gladly pay it. With the understanding that they will rein in those miscreants, and make bloody sure that no word is sent to the Coven about Baz's condition.

I have my hands full negotiating Baz's safety. If reconciliation is indeed necessary, then Baz should initiate it. Fathers do not apologize to their sons.

 **Simon**

It seems to be a problem without a solution. Daphne won't leave Baz for Christmas. Morphilemogene shouldn't have the burden of Christmas without their father. The mere prospect of Malcolm coming here has drained all of the joy from Baz's face. I can only imagine what his actual presence would do.

I don't want to be the one to uninvite Daphne, but I also can't stand seeing Baz like this. At first I thought he'd like having Christmas with the girls (I can call them that in my own head), now that they've become so close. But as the days pass and I watch Baz grow increasingly more agitated, I become convinced that Malcolm's presence here will cause more harm than good.

I find Daphne in the south field, developing spells that will keep the sheep contained and safe but not restrict their movement. From what I can tell, she has an unprecedented power in warding and protection. I can't understand why I've never known this about her.

Baz always implied that she was hopeless as a magician. I'd never gotten the sense that Baz dislikes Daphne or resents her role in his family, so I wonder what could have made him either blind or unwilling to acknowledge her power.

A mystery for another day. I'll ask Penny what she thinks when she arrives. I can't wait for her to come. Not having her around has been like missing my right arm. Or maybe my right brain. Or is it the left brain that's analytical? Anyway, I miss her.

Daphne notices me and walks over to where I'm standing. "What's going on, love?" she asks me. It's weird for her to talk to me like I'm one of her kids, but nice too.

"Why does something need to be going on?" I protest. "How do you know I'm not just here to practice my shepherding?"

Daphne smiles, and then says more seriously. "It's about Christmas, no?" Her French accent has gotten more pronounced while we've been here.

"Yeah," I nod glumly. "It's tearing Baz apart. And he would be just as upset if Morphi- the girls, I mean, if the girls have to wonder why they're not with their da for Christmas. You know we love when you guys are here, but, uh..."

Daphne looks at me but doesn't finish my sentence for me. I rather like that about her. She gives me the time to stumble and stutter as much as I need until I can come up with the right words. It turns out that with a little time, I can usually find the words.

"What I am trying to say is, I think it would be better if you had Christmas in London, and Baz and I stay here," I finally manage to say.

Daphne nods, as though she expected this. Which she undoubtedly did. "Let's give him a bit more time," she says, referring to Baz's father.

I surprise myself when I say "No, I don't think we should. I don't think it's fair to Baz. I think we should settle this now, so he doesn't have to keep feeling so torn."

"I'll defer to your opinion on this, Simon. Though I am going to continue to press Malcolm to reconcile with Baz before Christmas. Even if we don't spend it together, we shouldn't spend it like this."

I think about protesting, but decide it's ok. I'll help Baz my way, she'll help Baz her way, and when we make mistakes, hopefully they'll cancel out.

 **Daphne**

I watch Simon walk back to the house. I see Baz meet him at the door, see them lean in to one another, and I look away before I further invade their privacy. They wouldn't expect that I could still see them.

I can see quite far, much in the same way Basilton can hear. My power lies in controlling charged particles, and my eyes naturally (if that word can be used) maximize the energy of every photon that falls within range of my retinas.

Controlling elements comes with many emergent powers; I can create nearly impenetrable wards, I can wipe out small organisms like bacteria or algae in waves. My parents realized early on that I would be a target if either side of the war knew what I was capable of, so I grew up learning both how to use and how to hide my powers.

It entertains me endlessly that Mordelia and all her friends are obsessed with a movie about a girl who has to hide her powers. At least in my case, I never had to hide from my own sister. Though I have hidden my power from my children, for their safety as much as my own.

I have mixed feelings about Simon. My goal has always been to look after Basilton. I was worried about how drawn he looked when he came to the house that Saturday, which is why I followed him to the Nialls'.

I was frightened as I watched him collapse after finding Simon. He should not have had to bear witness to such brutality, and although it was Edmund and George who had perpetrated the violence, I blamed Simon as well for inciting it.

And I shared Malcolm' distrust of the Mage's protégé. I was disturbed by the way Basilton hung on to the boy. Basilton had thrown himself into this romance with the blindness of the young, and he was more obsessed with the object of his affections than was healthy.

It's ironic, because Baz has always acted far older than his years. By the time I joined the family, a few years after Natasha's death, Baz was already a serious and reserved child, more like a small adult than a small boy. I didn't think much of it until Mordelia was born a couple of years later.

Baz was entranced by the baby. He would watch her sleep, sing to her when she fussed, read her books even when she was too young to sit. He would prop her up in her bouncy seat and read and read and read to her. She adored him, she would smile and gurgle and giggle at him. There were weeks when she would only stop crying if he came over to distract her.

His face when he was with her was open and soft. He smiled easily around her. I began to suspect that the distant seriousness I'd always observed in him was not his inevitable self. But then he left for Watford the next year. When he returned for Christmas and summer breaks, he was back to being bored and morose.

When Mordelia was still very little, I would occasionally find Baz in her room reading to her or crawling about on the floor playing with her, but only when he thought no one was watching. As soon as she could speak well enough to pose a danger to his secret, the secret that he could be silly and enjoy playing and being kind, he stopped. She was confused and angry and I was heartbroken to know that Baz felt he needed to hide his best self from us.

And now, over these past couple of months, I've seen that side of him again. And it is Simon who brings it out in him. Simon, who turns out to be a perfectly lovely young man in his own right. Mordelia adores the boy, and she does not become attached to new people easily. The littler ones take it as given that he is theirs to command as much as any other adult in the family. They demand stories, rides, tickles and songs. I trust my children's judgment more than my own when it comes to character. Children can sniff out any insincerity with a skill that is lost once they grow up.

Despite myself, I've become fond of Simon for who he is. I'm no longer protecting Baz from him. Now I'm protecting them both.

I had been concerned that Simon would be a barrier to Baz's reconciliation with Malcolm. It seems not to be the case. Though the fact that he won't give us more time before deciding about Christmas has reawakened my suspicions. I know they're unfounded, though. I too have noticed what Simon described, that as the deadline approaches for when Baz thinks he will be forced to see his father, all the light has drained from his face.

I didn't believe at first that Simon could really have forgiven Malcolm so easily, but it's become clear over time that Simon is completely sincere. It makes me wonder what the boy has experienced in his life, that he is so forgiving of a man who allowed him to go through that kind of suffering. Only someone who expects nothing but cruelty from the world could so unhesitatingly forgive those who could have protected them from it but didn't.

He forgives me too, without ever having really blamed me. I may have helped Baz find him, and I may have helped with his recovery. But he would have had far less to recover from if I'd told Baz as soon as I knew. And even less if I had bypassed Baz altogether and simply put a stop to it myself as I should have done.

The story of pain that was written on the poor child's battered body when he emerged from his imprisonment would have been far shorter if I'd intervened. And that is something I will have to live with. Something I will have to spend the rest of my life making up for.

Simon is not the problem, and Baz is not the problem. I'm forced to face the fact that there is no barrier left but Malcolm himself. He hasn't been here with me to see the transformations that convinced me we should support Baz and Simon both, that we should give our blessings to this relationship. I text him photographs, but I know they're no substitute for being here in person. I am determined to get Malcolm here to see Baz, even if my deadline has gotten a bit shorter.

 **Malcolm**

Daphne and the children have been spending more and more time in France. I don't in principle object to spending the holidays in France. But I am concerned for Daphne's safety. We have hidden her talents so successfully over the years, just as we have hidden Basilton's unfortunate affliction.

And I must admit, I don't know what I would even say to Baz if I were there.

Daphne has continued to send me an endless stream of photos. Of Baz, of the mageling (whom she insists on referring to by his given name, as though he is family). And the evidence she's presented about Baz's state is solid. The photos cannot speak to the reality of the situation. But they do attest to Baz's suffering when the mageling was ill, and his increasing joy as the boy recovered.

The most remarkable photo is this one of Baz playing with the girls. I haven't seen that look on his face since before Tasha died. It breaks my heart to see it now and realize it didn't have to be this way all these years. I thought his darkness was a consequence of his not being fully alive. But he looks completely alive now. It's rather startling. And I suppose if the mageling made this possible, I need to accept him.

I've always found it hard to gauge to what extent Baz's humanity is intact. That first Christmas after we lost Tasha, I didn't bother with gifts. I mean, who gives gifts celebrating the birth of Christ to a vampire? For all I knew, a Christmas gift would burn him like a cross.

Fiona was livid when she arrived later that day and discovered Baz despondent, believing he must be truly bad for Father Christmas to have crossed him off his list.

I was shocked to learn that Baz believed in childish things like Father Christmas, let alone that he believed in a mythical list that measured the truth of whether a person is good or bad. He always acted like a small adult around me, aloof and secure. Fiona brought him something later, but the damage had been done.

I don't want to repeat that mistake at a larger scale. To lose Basilton would be devastating. To lose him would be to lose Tasha completely. If I fail at this, I will lose Fiona as well, and quite possibly Daphne.

The remaining problem is that I haven't the foggiest idea how to go about reconciling with my own son. I suppose I will be forced to figure it out as I go along.

 **Malcolm**

Basilton won't allow me near the mageling, or even near the house. I suppose he means for me to be kept at a distance until he is satisfied that I am truly repentant. Though I'm put out by his impertinence, I am also proud of him; protectiveness is a valuable quality in a leader.

So we meet in what passes for a restaurant in this forgotten corner of the civilized world. When I arrive, Basilton is already seated. He stands politely when I come in, but does not offer me his hand.

"You're looking well," I say. And it's true, he's looking better than I've ever seen him. Though the light in his eyes that I could see in the photographs is notably absent.

"Why are you here?" He asks. Forceful and direct, both traits I admire. I try to read his face but it is carefully blank. Everything about the boy is pleasing.

"Your mother suggested that I talk to you," I reply after asking the waiter for our tea.

"You're here as a favor to Daphne?" he asks with deadly calm, as he stirs cream into his tea once it arrives.

"Well, no," I reply just as evenly. "I suppose I'm here because I owe you an apology. I'm sorry to have hurt you." There. I've managed it. Apologizing to my son. What is this world coming to?

"Is that all?" he asks, his face calm but his voice too flat.

My first reaction is anger. Yes, that's bloody well all. What more is there?

I'm not sure what I expected to happen after I'd said those magic words, but it wasn't this. That apology came at great cost, it was an offering, and I expected him to respond with some level of joy or gratitude.

Then I realize how absurd that is, and grimace inwardly. Come now Malcolm - trumpets and fanfares for doing what's right? You're better than this. So I swallow my anger.

"What more is there?" I ask. It's not intended as a rhetorical question, but Basilton takes it as such. His eyes close, he breathes deeply, and opens them again.

When he speaks, his tone is foreign. I am shocked when I finally place it. Disappointment. Mixed with disgust.

"Hurting me is the least of the things you've done. You stood by while people you consider your friends kidnapped and tortured a 17 year old kid. Because he loved me. You let them punish him for loving me. You would have let them kill him. You would have let him starve to death slowly, in excruciating pain, freezing and alone in the dark. Because he loves me. And because I love him. If this knowledge doesn't fill you with shame, if what you've done seems reasonable and just and you're merely sorry that it's complicated your relationship with me, then we're done here, Malcolm. There is nothing left."

He has never called me by my name before, and the message is not lost on me.

 **Baz**

My voice betrays more emotion than I'd like, but so be it. I will not be talking to this man again as his son. I'm amazed that I can speak at all. Inwardly I'm destroyed.

My father's air, his words, his calm, all sicken me. I've admired and emulated this man my whole life, and he's as depraved and cold as his enemies say. I've always been able to make excuses for his faults.

When it was just me he was erasing, I could make excuses. No longer.

I want to stand, to turn around and walk out that door and go back to Simon, whose goodness (whose unbearable, insufferable goodness) has become my salvation. But I know that my legs will shake if I stand, and I will not leave this conversation in weakness. I will not stumble when I turn my back on my father.

I do allow myself to close my eyes, to have at least that respite from his face. His confusing, disappointing, frightening face. A face that I'm ashamed to discover I still love.

I don't want to leave. I don't want this to be how it ends. I don't want my father to be evil.

My eyes startle back open when he reaches across the table and takes my hand. His expression is one I've never seen him wear before. His eyes are filled with tears. This much emotion from my father is like other people ripping out their hair and gnashing their teeth.

I'm disgusted. He suffers this much to know I no longer consider him my father, but suffered not at all while Simon was entombed in a dungeon.

Then he speaks, and his voice is sad, urgent.

 **Malcolm**

I sit stunned after his tirade. He is right. He is right, and I am terribly, terribly wrong.

Seeing myself through his eyes like this fills me with an unfamiliar and unpleasant emotion. It takes a moment for me to place it. Shame.

I did indeed allow an innocent child to be hurt, when I could have prevented it. Mageling or not, he was guiltless. He was punished not so much for loving Baz as for being loved by him. I don't know how I've become this man. It is not the man I ever intended to be.

I make no effort now to hide my feelings. I reach out and take my son's hand. I allow him to read the emotions on my face. On his face, I see only disgust. But I will at least express my guilt, even if I cannot make amends.

It seems Daphne was right after all. It seems that I've already lost him. But I don't have to lose myself. Whether he accepts me or not, I need to acknowledge that my actions were, as he has all but said, unforgivable.

I take heart from the fact that he hasn't yet left, that he still sits with me at this table. So I speak, as plainly as I can.

"You're right, Basilton." I say. "You're right, and I'm sorry. And the person I most need to apologize to is Simon. I should never have allowed him to come to such harm. Him or anyone. But especially the boy you love, the boy who loves you."

Baz looks at me with a mixture of confusion and determination. I've never said the mageling's name before. Simon's name. My penance can at least start with his name.

"I'm not letting you anywhere near Simon," he spits, and for a moment I see the full rage behind his eyes. He's so alive, it takes my breath away.

"I can understand that," I reply. "And again, you're right. I do need to earn that privilege. I was wrong about more things than I knew. And expressing my sorrow for the pain I've caused is only the smallest step towards that. But it's the only step I can take right now. I hope to have the chance to take more steps in the future. I'd like to be able to continue to see you. I want to be in your life, Basilton. Your lives. Yours and Simon's. If you'll allow it. I don't expect you to answer me now. But I do hope you will consider my request."

 **Baz**

I'm confused. It was easier to feel shattered, to feel rage. My father's voice is direct and emotional. He doesn't make any excuses for his actions. He accepts that there are consequences. He says Simon's name. He acknowledges our love without judgment. He asks my permission to be in my life.

So I say, far more calmly than I feel, "I will consider it." And then I leave him on steady legs and go to find Simon.

 **Simon**

Baz wouldn't let me come with him to meet with his father, and I wouldn't let him walk into that situation alone, so we compromised. I could drive him and wait in the car nearby, and if he hadn't come out after two hours I could go in.

He was gone maybe 20 minutes. That doesn't seem like a good sign. Surely reconciliation takes longer than boiling rice. But his fangs aren't out, which does seem like a good sign.

He gets into the car and reaches for me. Good sign or bad, I'm glad for it. I hold him for a moment and then hold his hand and drive us a bit farther out into the countryside so his father doesn't happen across us on his way back to the train. Finally I shut off the car and turn to him.

He reaches for my shoulders and kisses me and then sinks into my chest and cries. I try not to act surprised while I stroke his back and let him cover my shirt in tears and snot. I'm glad he lets me see him like this, and that he lets me comfort him. I'm pretty worried though, because I haven't seen Baz like this in a long time.

I'm furious with Malcolm. How can he do this to Baz? How he can hurt him after all that's happened? I don't know what happened in the restaurant, but I hate him.

I don't want to hate anyone anymore. I don't want to think about anyone I hate anymore. I was able to put away all hatred for the man who left me to rot. But I cannot put away my hate for the man who did this, the man who cracks Baz down the middle like a broken eggshell.

Baz cries and cries and cries but doesn't say a word. I hold him and kiss his forehead and wipe his tears and tell him that it will be ok. That I love him. And I let him cry while I imagine all the terrible things I want to do to Malcolm.

Baz is finally still, and leans back in his seat with his face drawn and his eyes closed. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. I still have no idea what actually happened back there with his father. I'm not risking bringing him back to the house, where Daphne and the girls are waiting.

So I drive to a little path I've found that runs along a stream in the woods. Walking always helps me, so for the lack of any better ideas, I bring him there.

I forgot how cold it was, though. And how easily Baz gets cold these days. There's a kind of shelter along the trail that's a step above a lean-to, and that's where I take him.

My heat quickly fills the small space and Baz starts a fire in the fire pit and we sit together hand in hand and quietly watch the flames. He rests his head on me and I put my arm around his shoulders and we just sit.

"You ok?" I ask at some point, and he nods. "Want to talk about it?" He shakes his head. "Ok then," I say. And we sit. And it's ok.

 **Daphne**

Mal and I arrange all the paperwork and spellwork. We will have it executed as soon as our barrister is back from the holidays.

We've set up a trust for Simon identical to the one we've established for all our other children. We've extended all the family wards and magickal protections to apply equally to him. We've included him in our will and added him as a dependent and successor to all of our funds and accounts.

He has access to all our properties, our planes and boats, our emergency hideaways on three continents and an advanced facility in Antarctica that could survive any natural or magickal disaster and provide two centuries of protection following it. Our extended network of legal, political and intelligence assets will be instructed to include him in any arrangements that must be made going forward.

We've made sure there are no dependencies, and that the allocations will remain in place regardless of the status of his and Baz's relationship in the future.

Baz should be familiar enough with our systems to notice the changes on his own, and we have no other plans to tell him about it. He will think we are trying to buy his forgiveness. But we're not. We're putting as much in place as we can to concretely establish our commitment to them before we try again to broach reconciliation.

There is one thing I might have to tell him about though. Something I hadn't even planned. The house has chosen him. Him and Simon.

The house has been in my family for nearly a thousand years. It's not just a warded house. It's The Warded House, the original one, built to protect our family during a particularly vicious war with the demons and goblins. It worked so well that it sparked a secondary war in the next generation, as all the descendants of the original builders fought over who would inherit it.

So the elders of the family enchanted the house to choose its own occupants. The chosen group could open it to the rest of the family, but they couldn't be forced to. In years when the house didn't think any branch of the family was particularly in need of protection, the deed would become blank until it had chosen new owners. It's been blank for the past sixty years.

We discovered that it had changed when we were going through all our property records to prepare them for Simon's inclusion. The deed now reads "Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch and Simon Salisbury Snow." (I'm not sure what to make of the Salisbury part.)

The house has never chosen non-blood family before, so it hadn't occurred to me to try and give it to them, even though the two of them were clearly the most in need of protection. But now we can rest easy that they'll remain safe. The house has never failed its occupants. Not in a thousand years.

 **Simon**

My life has fallen into a peaceful pattern. I don't care about traveling anymore; there's nothing that I need to run from. Our days blend together, become indistinguishable. Every morning, Baz sleeps late, though he no longer has the excuse of being up hunting every night. He just likes sleeping late. (He still hunts. Just not every night. And it doesn't take all night, not when we're hunting together.)

In the mornings while he sleeps, I practice with my sword. When I get back, sweaty and reeking from hours of hacking at things, he's still in bed. Most days, I shower and then join him. Sometimes I don't bother with the shower.

Life with Baz has become a sensual grammar lesson. We conjugate prepositions: on, under, over, around. In. We practice the syntax with our fingers and tongues and lips and teeth. We discover new ways to string the phrases together to form ever more pleasurable sentences written in the language of our bodies. If I didn't make myself a list of things to do outside the house, I don't think I'd manage to go more than ten minutes without tumbling into bed with him.

He is endlessly alluring. His tall frame blocks everything else from my sight. His black hair contrasts with the unearthly white of his face, and I can't leave a single strand of it untouched. I used to think his beauty came from being a vampire, until I met some other vampires. They're a hideous lot.

All except him. He's perfect.

So every morning, he sleeps until I come wake him. Every day, I get to take my sweet time drawing him up from sleep. Sometimes we don't get out of bed until well past noon. I smile at how lucky my life has become. Then I feel like an idiot for thinking of myself as lucky. It's not like I don't realize how fucked up my life is. It's just that right now my life is so removed from everything else, so filled with wonder and love that I can't help but feel like the rest of it didn't matter.

 **Baz**

Simon's come out his ordeal with Dev and Niall remarkably unchanged.

That's not quite right He has changed. Just not for the worse. His eyes are less haunted. He doesn't bluster about the way he used to. His ribs don't show through his skin. His arms and back and chest have become thicker, roped with muscles from hours practicing with his sword or playing football with me and some of the blokes from the next farm over. (He's still a clumsy oaf on the pitch. That hasn't changed.)

His hair is longer. He doesn't shave it any more, and the curls tumble in an unruly mop around his face. His face is softer, less vigilant. He doesn't look like he's always waiting for the next catastrophe. His appetite is as big as ever as he eats and drinks with abandon, as if he'd never heard of flatware or crockery.

In short, he's sexy as all hell.

It's confounding to me that with every new nightmare life throws at him, he emerges filled with more good and light than ever. I used to think his openness, his bravery and honesty, were signs of weakness. That his integrity was a side effect of being too thick to understand how nasty the world actually is. I'm chagrined to discover that I have been the naive one all along.

Now that we spend every waking (and sleeping) moment together, I realize that Simon knows better than anyone how full of malice people are, and how fleeting happiness is. He tells me that he chooses happiness. It's an act of defiance. It's the ultimate fuck you to everyone who's ever hurt him. They can't hurt him anymore, because he refuses to stay hurt.

I never guessed that cynicism and joy could go hand in hand. I never knew that my own darkness was a concession to those who would erase me, not a defense against them. I never thought of anyone as being wiser than me, or stronger than me. Let alone Simon.

I'm skeptical at first, but I come to realize that it is somewhat heroic to insist on happiness when the world offers you nothing but misery. It's stunning, and a bit frightening, and regrettably humbling. Simon in a nutshell.

Handsome, simple, fuckable Simon. How did he ever put up with me? Ah, but he didn't. He hated me for years. Now, I can almost understand why.


	8. Christmas

**Penelope**

I find myself counting the days until term ends, until I can see Simon again. I've been texting with Baz, who sends photos, but Simon still refuses to get a phone. He wants to be cut off from the world. He doesn't want to be found. Can't say that I blame him. But I do miss him, more than I expected to.

It's been causing some tension between me and Micah. I can't believe he's still jealous. If he's not convinced by now that Simon and I aren't about to tumble into bed, I'm not sure what could convince him.

He wanted me to leave Simon alone for Christmas. Again. After everything that's happened. And I have no patience for it. Micah is not going to separate me from my friends. I'm not going to be trapped in some kind of fucked up possessive male fantasy.

Which seems to be what happened to Lucy. I can open her journals now. The wards broke after Simon's kidnapping. I think he was so close to death that his ties to magical objects started disintegrating.

The more I read the journals, the more I wonder at how such a smart, strong woman would lie to herself for so long about the monster she was in love with. She had friends who loved her and tried to keep her from becoming completely isolated by Davy. I know this first hand, because my mother was her closest friend.

I'm angry with mum for not doing more, for not tracking Lucy down and rescuing her from that relationship. She gets defensive about it, she says she had her own family to worry about and she was hurt by the way Lucy disappeared on her. It's family over friendship again.

If I ever disappeared on her, she'd turn over heaven and hell to find me. But it's like there's a built-in mistrust in friendship. It's not unconditional. So when a friend stubbornly stays away, you don't worry what's wrong. Instead you feel hurt that they've decided the relationship is over, or that it never was anything to begin with.

Well, I've had more than enough of this. There's no reason friendship can't be just as unconditional as family. In friendship you choose whom to love; nothing is arbitrary. Doesn't that make it stronger than blood?

I'm not going to abandon Simon the way mum abandoned Lucy. I'm not going to lose my friends to please my boyfriend. In short, I'm not going to stay in London for the holidays, even if I go to France by myself. I really hope Micah comes with me, though. I want him to be the kind of person who would come with me.

 **Daphne**

The girls and I return to London early. Simon and Baz need some time to themselves before their friends arrive, and Malcolm and I need to prepare for the holiday. He told me about what happened between him and Basilton. It's not clear how it will play out, but at least the process has started.

 **Baz**

I relish the silence, and the chance to be alone with Simon again. He's less disappointed about the children's absence than I'd expected. I don't know how to tell him about my conversation with Malcolm, but I have the luxury of knowing there's no rush. Simon will be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

Now I get to kiss his neck slowly as he rolls out dough for pies. I get to pretend to be annoyed at being asked to taste every new concoction he dreams up and to be exasperated by the hours he spends choosing courses and pairing wines. I get to put my hands on his chest and my lips on his skin whenever I want him to take a break from all these preparations. (He doesn't take that much convincing.)

I get to fetch and carry ingredients for him from around the countryside and drag him outside to dance with me in the moonlight. I get to play my violin for him in front of the fire and watch his eyes sparkle in the flames. I get to feel his hands in my hair and his breath on my lips and his skin against mine. I get to hear his voice in my ear as he sings my name. I get to see his face in the mornings when I open my eyes, and to feel his eyes on me when we lie down to sleep.

We still have nightmares, both of us. But he says he'd rather have nightmares and wake up to find himself beside me, than to have dreams filled with light but then wake up somewhere else.

 **Simon**

I never expected to have this kind of peace. Or love. I guess I never really expected anything, full stop. I never expected to survive this long. I never thought past 18.

I'm getting really good with food. I can anticipate how flavors will combine, which textures add balance, how to pace courses and develop a meal that tells a story. I can't wait to show Penny. I can't wait to see Penny. I think Baz would be happy to never see another soul. But I miss Penny.

The world looks different to me these days, as though my magic were fusing me to it rather than controlling it. When I touch a piece of wood, I can feel how its life connects it to me while its substance connects to the earth. It shows me things, shows me how life emerges from cells and how cells emerge from molecules and how molecules are built from atoms. It shows me how light and sound dance through the air, landing on our waiting bodies and generating streams of electricity that race along their paths inside us until our minds choose a story to tell us about this world we all share.

The wood tells me what to do and I listen. I make things, tiny replicas of the things I've seen. When I'm done I usually show Baz. But he wants to talk about it, to understand how it works and compare the details with known accounts of how sound propagates and how electron orbitals quantize.

I don't mind thinking about all that, but it's really beside the point. Sometimes it gets frustrating for me, that he can't just see how everything connects. And it's frustrating for him that I can't break things down into their component parts. So I don't always show him what I've made. And he doesn't always tell me what he's read. And sometimes it's hard to know what to say to each other. I've always preferred doing to talking, but I worry that he's not happy.

 **Baz**

Bunce and Micah arrive Thursday morning. (I call him Micah only because his family name is an unpronounceable Eastern European jumble of late-alphabet consonants unencumbered by vowels.) Simon is jumpy with anticipation and races out when he hears their car turn into the drive. I heard the car 20 minutes ago, so I had time to prepare myself for the sappy lovefest that will doubtless ensue.

Micah and I stand aside awkwardly as Simon and Penny hug and dance around and fight over who missed whom more. Then I notice it's mostly just Simin doing the jumping. Penny's eyes sparkle at seeing him, but it turns out she's not one for demonstrative greetings. My admiration for her grows. But I still feel left out.

I invite our guests inside and take their coats and ask if they'd like some tea. Simon and Penny are oblivious, totally wrapped in their own little world. I make a mental note never to let this much time pass without them seeing one another. I don't think I could stomach another reunion like this one. Micah clearly feels the same way. We've never said more than 5 words to one another, and despite the shared experiences of the last few months, we have no more to say to each other now than we ever did.

I excuse myself to gather the final ingredients for tonight's dinner, preferring to be a bad host outdoors rather than in. I also want to hunt so that I won't need to do it again while they're here, at least for a few days.

I get back in time to shower and change before dinner. I'd assumed it would be casual, but on Monday Simon revealed that he's fantasized about me in that green suit ever since last Christmas Eve, and I wouldn't want to disappoint.

His hair is long these days and messy and I can't resist lifting one of his curls and kissing the soft nape of his neck. He grins his wicked grin and manages to flip me over and onto the bed, despite my being a bit taller and more than a bit stronger than he is. He crawls across the bed to me and runs his hands up my legs and whispers to me about all the ways he fancies me in this suit until I'm blushing madly. We have to dress all over again.

 **Micah**

Being here turns out not to be that bad. I'm a bit of a food snob so visiting England is rough on me gastronomically. But Simon has filled the kitchen with a surprisingly sophisticated array of farm-to-table staples, and lunch puts me in a good mood.

The grounds are beautiful and the house is laid-back. Simon and Penny tease one another relentlessly and she is happier than I've seen her since getting here two months ago. There was a sad cast to her face that had become so permanent I'd stopped noticing it until it lifted when she saw Simon.

Pitch doesn't seem like he has a stick quite as far up his ass as usual, and I'm stunned to watch him putter around the kitchen helping Simon cook and tidy up and then eating nearly as much as Simon does.

If I'm being honest, Baz is entirely charming. He and I overcome our awkwardness when we start talking about spell dialects. He has an interesting theory about epiphenomena that can emerge if you layer a spell with multiple versions of the same underlying text. We argue about the merits of contemporary music versus children's verse. It's gratifying when he concedes that he hadn't appreciated the full potential of riffing that jazz introduced into contemporary American spellwork.

He impresses me with a demonstration of reinforcing function with form by using 'sounds of silence' to amplify a playlist of American folk music on his iPhone. Then he grins (actually grins. I never saw him do anything but sneer or pout the entire year I was at Watford) and I relax and start to enjoy myself.

 **Penny**

The last time I saw Simon he was barely one step above a corpse. Now he's beaming, overflowing with enthusiasm, telling me five things at the same time. We're both talking nonstop, trying to fill each other in on everything that's been happening for the past few months. I leave some stuff out, like my thoughts about Lucy and the journals. I'm sure he's leaving stuff out too. But there's more than enough to talk about anyway.

And I needn't have worried about Micah. He's being perfectly nice. In fact, I think he's having rather a good time. Which frees me to do the same. (I haven't had the guts to tell Micah about the public snogging plan, but aside from not being able to take my petty revenge, everything is just about perfect.)

 **Micah**

Christmas Eve dinner is spectacular. Simon choreographed a steady progression from an amuse bouche of simple winter berries to a glorious rack of lamb and then back down until we reach a single scoop of pear sorbet at the end of the meal. There are 14 courses and wine pairings for each of them and I'm completely blown away.

I'm touched too, because one of the early courses was potato pancakes with smoked caviar and horseradish glaze, and the first dessert course was a delicate interpretation of sufganiyot as beignets and hand-made chocolate coins. I don't have the heart to tell him that Chanukah ended two weeks ago.

I'm surprised when Baz does tell him, and I learn that Baz is one of the few people I've ever met who even knows about, let alone can keep track of, the difference between the lunar and solar months. He's fascinated when I explain the magical properties that emerge from the dance of the earth and the moon as they mark time traveling around their uncorrelated orbits.

That's what initially got me interested in medicine. I discovered a previously unknown connection between the power of medicinal herbs and the interaction of the solar and lunar orbits. I've been able to use my observations to invent new spell classes that change seasonally but on a timescale of decades rather than months. Applying these classes to potions acts as a sort of magical pressure cooker, increasing their efficacy while reducing side effects.

By the end of dinner we're all pleasantly full and slightly drunk. We share the washing up and then linger in the kitchen, talking and laughing. I have my arms around Penny and Baz has his arms around Simon and we finally migrate to the living room (or whatever they call it in France) and sit in front of the fire in a happy, well-fed silence.

 **Baz**

I'm relieved that I don't have to pretend to enjoy Micah's company. Micah's every bit as clever as Penny, and his interests overlap even more neatly with mine. In fact, dinner turns out splendidly. Simon's reached an astonishing level of sophistication for someone who has only recently learned how to use a napkin.

Lovely as it's all been, I'm desperate for the evening to end. I'm not accustomed to the constraints imposed by propriety any more. I'm used to having Simon to myself. I'm used to touching him whenever and wherever the fancy takes me. And though I might've been able to bend the rules around Penny, I'm not quite far gone enough to indulge myself with Micah as witness.

I'd almost forgotten how alarmingly handsome Simon is. How sexy his presence is, how intoxicating it is to watch him eat lustily and wipe his mouth on his sleeve with a sensual innocence that borders on indecent. Sitting through dinner next to him, unable to do more than touch the back of his hand with my fingers or hold his knee beneath the tablecloth, has been an exquisite agony.

When we enter the sitting room, I'm glad for the excuse of the fireplace because I can't go another minute without setting something ablaze. Now, snuggled near the fire in the afterglow of food and wine and laughter, I just want to grab Simon and drag him up the stairs to bed, to finish what we'd started earlier. I don't think I can hold out for much longer. I'm desperate for Penny and Micah to leave.

 **Simon**

I'd asked Daphne to go back to London for Christmas because I thought it would be best for Baz, but I hadn't realized how much better it would be for me, too. Having never been anything but an orphan or a guest over the holidays, I hadn't anticipated what it would be like to have Christmas with no one else's parents around.

I've never been an equal part of Christmas before. I've never belonged to any celebration as much as the other people around me. But now I am, I do, and I feel like a person rather than someone trying to pass as a person. I feel full.

 **Penny**

Simon is flushed with pride when Micah is so effusive about the meal. I'm glad there's someone around to appreciate it, because I would've been equally happy with pizza and beer. They chat about recipes and the relative merits of molecular gastronomy (which sounds more like a medical procedure to me than an approach to food). We're sitting in a huge open room that gets colder with the squared distance from the fire, so we sit close together in a companionable huddle and gradually grow quiet.

Then Micah says, apropos of nothing and with his typically American disregard of any social protocol: "So, Baz, Penny doesn't think you and Simon have noticed yet that you're alive, but I think it's impossible that you've missed it."

Baz goes so still, he could be made of stone. Simon looks over at Micah in confusion, then at Baz, then at me. I can see him starting to get angry (and smell it too; he's starting to smell like a day-old campfire.)

"Micah," I groan, "could you even be more rude?" He rolls his eyes.

"Why is that a rude thing to ask?" he protests. "It's not like being alive is a bad thing."

"No," I agree. "But it's personal. And in general it's best not to confront people with surprising personal truths about themselves late at night. In front of other people. Especially when you're not even really friends."

I turn to Baz, and say matter-of-factly, "I noticed it this fall. You blush. You get sick. Your skin is never more than a couple of degrees colder than whatever space you're in. You can go a couple of days without hunting and be ok. Your nostrils don't twitch when you're near other people. You're definitely still a vampire, but you're also definitely alive."

Baz doesn't say anything, just gets up and walks to the window where he stands silently and looks out. Simon gets up and goes to him, putting a tentative hand on Baz's back, which starts shaking. I glare at Micah and he shrugs back at me.

Then Baz steps back and I realize he's laughing. Simon hits him in the arm but then he starts laughing too. On the window, in the fog made by Baz's newly warm breath, he's drawn a little heart around the letters S + B. He and Simon find this hilarious. Then they're snogging shamelessly and Micah snorts "get a room," but he's clearly relieved. They ignore us as we leave them to it and head up to bed to do some snogging of our own.

 **Baz**

It's quiet, but no one looks like they're planning to retire to bed any time soon. I would normally just go myself, but I don't want to ruin anything for Simon. He's so happy to have Penny back. He seems thrilled that the four of us are sitting around the fire together like we're a pair of couples from some blasted BBC drama.

So I remain where I am, envying the the couch for its proximity to the heat of Simon's body. I resent the wool of his trousers for their privileged position caressing his thighs. The echo of his skin across the insurmountable barrier of cloth and leather separating him from me is driving me mad. I'm on the verge of breaking when I hear Micah say that I'm alive.

I freeze. I hate Americans, with their vulgar insistence on laying bare with words what should be covered up in silence. But I'm intrigued. I walk to the window, wondering if he's right, laughing inwardly as I think up the perfect test. Simon has always delighted in the simple fact that my breath is too cold to fog even the warmest window on the coldest day.

As I lean toward the glass, I blow out gently, and am almost giddy when I see the surface obediently darken with condensation. I feel Simon behind me, and his hand burns a sensual tattoo on my back. Laughing aloud, I carve our initials in the liquid fog, and step back to let him see what I've accomplished. Our joined laughter rings through the air as the last of my self-control breaks and I take Simon in my arms.

I'm alive. Literally. What an odd thing to discover. And all I want to do with this life I now have is touch Simon. Devilish, angelic, tantalizing Simon. So I do. I touch his hair with my living hands. I breathe my newly warm breath into his mouth. I rest my full beating heart on his chest. I feel the force of his life and his magic fuse with mine. I'm pressed up against him but he still feels too far away.

I'm startled when I feel my jacket melt away, then my shirt. He's never done that with me before, never simply thought something out of existence. The boundaries between him and the rest of the world have been blurring steadily. I may not have his power but I have my own, and I shred his suit with a flick of my finger. He responds with a growl that pushes me ever farther towards the edge, and his grin turns wicked.

We're both wild and bright, breathing hard and moving deliberately. His bare skin burns in my grasping hands and he clutches at my back and knots his fingers in my hair. I push him to the floor and a thick shearling rug materializes beneath him with the speed of thought. I waste no time waiting for his magic to remove the layers that remain between us. My strength wakes something in him and he's magnificent, long and golden and warm. There's nothing in the world but me and him and our skin and lips and breath, and we fog up every window in France with our heat.

 **Simon**

I linger upstairs on Christmas morning, putting finishing touches on the gifts I've made for each of them. I'm excited but also a little nervous to see their reactions. I worry that getting a home-made present is like getting an ugly sweater from your great aunt. Not that I would know.

When I get downstairs, Baz, Penny and Micah are all sitting around the table. I can hear their voices as I approach the kitchen.

"So are you suggesting that I am completely alive or only partially alive?" Baz is asking, as if this were a normal chat to have around breakfast.

"I'm not sure," I hear Penny respond. "My guess would be mostly, but maybe not completely."

"So how is that different from every other vampire?" Baz presses.

"We don't know for sure that other vampires aren't completely dead," argues Penny.

"Coldfield and Newarth's 1847 study was convincing enough for me." Baz says, as I stand in the doorway, still unseen.

"Fine," Penny says, shrugging. "Then it's a difference of degree. But that's not trivial. Owens and Smith have argued that the same is true of all creatures. That we're all on a spectrum of alive-ness. Just with vampires at one extreme and humans at the other."

I've been dreading this since last night. In retrospect, it's why I spent so much time upstairs this morning. Hoping I could avoid being part of this conversation. I can't handle an academic discussion on the life or death of the boy I love.

I've always known Baz was alive. It doesn't seem like a mystery that needs to be solved. It upsets me to even hear it asked as a question. It's honestly creepy to talk about Baz like this, like he's a thing, not a person. It makes me angry. It makes me want to break things, to punch a wall or kick the door.

Apparently I'm in the minority on this one.

I give up and head in. Baz brightens visibly when he sees me. It makes everyone else in the room disappear for me, and I'm drawn to him with the inevitability of every winged creature in the presence of a flame.

As usual, Baz is leaning back in his chair so that it tilts at an impossible angle, his feet balanced on the table's base. I walk over and sit on him, so that his chair abruptly tips back down to the floor and he is kind of thrown into my arms. It's a delicious kiss. And a good distraction.

But I'm hungry for food, too, so I leave it at that and head to the fridge, hoping that's the end of the is-Baz-alive-or-dead debate.

No such luck. As soon as I walk away from the table, they carry on the conversation they were having before I interrupted. I try to tune them out as best I can while I forage for breakfast.

Some part of my brain must be monitoring their voices, though, because I am suddenly alert as I hear Penny say "No. I don't think you are immortal."

At this, I stop gathering and settle on some scones (of course) and butter (also of course). I walk back to the table and take a seat next to Baz, listening despite myself. Baz and I have never let ourselves talk about his mortality. It's too confusing. I don't ever want him to die. But he doesn't ever want to have to live without me.

"You grew from a baby to an adult," she is saying. Micah snorts (presumably at the idea of Baz being an adult). Penny ignores him. "So you can age. There's no reason to think you won't keep on aging."

It's quiet for a moment and then Baz asks, as though discussing a chemistry problem or an essay he's reading, "so, do I age because I'm alive, or am I alive because I was turned when I was young and had to age?"

Penny perks up at the question. Micah and Baz lean in, wanting to hear her answer. I'm the only one, it seems, who's _not_ interested in understanding the mechanics of how Baz came to be alive.

"I'm not totally sure," Penny admits "It's really rare for a baby to grow into vampirehood, maybe one or two in the past thousand years. Vampires usually drain and kill children rather than turning them and then waiting for them to hit puberty. And if a vampire does turn a baby and then leaves it, families usually kill it before it can manifest."

I cringe when she says that, and look up at Baz. When Penny's in math mode (which is what I call it when she's trying to figure something out like this), she can be really oblivious.

Baz's face is perfectly calm, but I can see his throat moving the way it does when he's anxious. Penny just referred to him as an 'it.' She knows that his mum killed herself rather than become a vampire. Maybe she doesn't know that Baz thinks she would have done the same to him, had she lived.

I want to do something, but I can't think of anything that would make him feel better in front of other people. So I take his hand and hold it gently and run my thumb over the back of it.

Penny keeps talking, not noticing that anything's wrong. I start to interrupt her but Baz squeezes my hand and shakes his head quietly at me. So I let her go on.

"But there's never been a recorded case of someone who was turned as a child and made it all the way to adulthood without ever biting someone. I mean, it should be impossible."

Penny looks at Baz. "So, how did you manage it?" she asks bluntly.

"Manage what?" he asks with a sneer. "To not commit murder? Is that really a question?"

"Yeah. Not commit murder when every instinct is telling you that you should, that you have to. That much self restraint is… unusual," Penny answers. "Not to mention the fact that the explicit plan all along was for you to murder Simon at some point anyway."

There's silence at the table, each of us caught up in our own train of thought, following the logical consequences of her words.

I start thinking about what it must have been like for Baz to grow up in his family of secrets and unspoken truths. Learning to hide and keep himself tightly controlled, just to survive his childhood. Bringing that control with him to Watford. I suddenly appreciate how much that facade must have cost him.

What's wrong with me? How had I never thought about how hard it must have been to figure out how to be a vampire, totally alone. How impossible it must have been to be hit by a sudden craving for blood and find a way to satisfy it without hurting anyone and without anyone ever knowing. Not having anyone he could ask for help. Being forced underground, into the dark, filthy catacombs, drinking feral rats.

I feel sick at the memory of tormenting Baz all those years at Watford. Following him around, telling him I knew he was a vampire, threatening to expose him. Actually trying to expose him. I was one of the primary people making his life hell, forcing him to hide and live in constant fear of being found out.

How could I have ever been that person? Why did I think it made me a hero to torment a kid struggling to come to terms with an agonizing reality? Not a kid. My roommate. My nemesis. My obsession. Baz.

I turn to him, filled with sadness and shame and regret. I wish we were alone. I wish I could take him in my arms and tell him how sorry I am. Sorry that he had to go through all that. That he was so alone. That I'd made it even worse than it had to be.

But Baz would hate if I did anything to make him even more vulnerable right now, in front of Penny and Micah. In the middle of dissecting his existence, discussing his mortality around the breakfast table.

So all I do is look up at him and say quietly, "Baz. I'm sorry. For making it so much worse. All those years."

I'm sure he knows what I mean. I'm not sure how he'll respond. Baz just raises an eyebrow, cool as ever. "Now there's an apology I never expected to hear. You're sorry that you were concerned about the fact that your roommate was a vampire? I don't think that's something you're supposed to apologize for."

I shake my head, but I don't try to say anything more. I just move my chair a little closer to Baz and put my arm around him. He smiles down at me and I feel forgiven enough to stay where I am.

 **Baz**

Simon just apologized. And I'm pretty sure that was a compliment from Bunce a minute ago. I'm a bit in shock that I am actually having this conversation. Out loud. With Simon. And Penny.

I've imagined it a thousand times. I had this conversation in my head with Simon for years after the initial blood lust (not to mention normal lust) hit me like an avalanche.

Of course, when this conversation happened in my head, I was saying Penny's lines and she was saying mine. And in my imagined conversations with Simon, his apology was accompanied by professions of undying love and then a fair amount of, well, more conventional fantasizing. I'll have to collect the rest of his apology later, I suppose.

The internalized versions of Penny and Simon had become so much a part of my mind that it was how I thought of myself. Still is. That no one needs to apologize for treating me like a monster. That I have no right to crave empathy and admiration just because I never murdered anyone. I feel my hands start to shake. I have to get some control over this conversation before I lose my composure completely.

I smile quickly at Simon, hoping he'll understand, and then I ignore him and turn to Penny.

"Was that a compliment, Bunce?" I ask with a careful smirk.

"Don't let it get to your head," she smirks back. Kind of coldly. I can't tell if she knows me so well that she's helping me steer this conversation to safer waters, or if she dislikes me so much that she really doesn't get it. Or doesn't care.

I'm unsure how to proceed. There is another element that Penny hasn't mentioned yet, and it would serve to turn the conversation away from my inner turmoil and self loathing. On the other hand, it's very personal.

Yeah. Like the rest of this isn't. I take a deep breath and plunge in.

"I think it was because of Simon," I say. He looks at me, but for once I can't read his face.

"That day. With the dragon. When Simon filled me with his magic. I felt better, fuller, than I ever had. Later, in our room, when we figured out that I was the only one who could tolerate taking in Simon's magic like that, I thought it must have to do with being a vampire."

"Yes! That makes so much sense!" cries Penny eagerly.

I sit back and let out my breath. Crisis averted. Penny can take it from here.

 **Simon**

"Simon's magic acted as a life source!" Penny says excitedly. "Instead of having to absorb life through human blood, you were able to absorb it through Simon's magic."

I glance at Baz while Penny explains how my magic must satisfy the need for a source of human life, but that Baz still needs blood for the physiological aspect of vampirism. I've told her about that night, when the Humdrum drained Baz and I refilled him. When he stared at me with a mouth full of fangs and I poured everything I had into him. But miraculously, she has enough tact not to mention it, and acts like we're talking about that first time, with the dragon.

I'm not sure how much more of this I can sit through. I'm not sure how much more of this Baz can sit through. Turns out we don't have to. It's Micah of all people who rescues us.

"All righty then," he interrupts loudly, as Penny warms up to the theme of blood and sex and starts to delve into an analysis of how vampires can get erections. "I think we've sufficiently addressed this topic for one day. Let's go explore the orchard or something, Penny."

Mercifully, Penny takes the not-so-subtle hint and agrees to go out with Micah, calling over her shoulder that we'll meet back up later to exchange presents.

Baz and I sit in the sudden silence. "I'm sorry, Baz," I whisper. "I hate that I was part of that. That I made it so much worse. For so many years."

He looks like he's going to say something flippant again, but then relaxes back in his chair and lets his face reflect his emotions. Sadness. Pain. Relief. Forgiveness.

"I know," he says quietly. "But you know, I don't think it could really have been any different. And the thing is, once you knew for sure I was a vampire, it didn't bother you at all. And even though you always thought I was a vampire, you also always thought I was alive. That I had a soul. Knowing that you knew I was a vampire but still thought I was a person, that mattered more than all the posturing about turning me in. Because if you had really wanted to, you could have. And so I knew you must not really want to. So in a weird way, it was comforting, actually."

I shake my head. I can't tell if his thought process is really so convoluted, or if he's trying to make me feel better, or trying to make himself feel better. And in this moment, I don't really care. At least now we're here. At least now we know. At least now, we're not hurting each other any more.

"I think it went both ways," I say, without quite understanding the words until they're already leaving my mouth. "I think you changed me as much as I changed you. When we share my magic, it changes me, too."

"What do you mean?" Baz asks, and I'm surprised. He must be really exhausted to ask straight out, rather than making a joke or saying something snarky.

"I mean part of you becomes part of me, too." I say.

He rolls his eyes. "Very clarifying."

I think a little. "The things that make you, you. They become part of me." I know I haven't really added anything to my last statement. But I'm not sure how to explain. So I try again.

"Your strength. Your grace." I expect him to raise an eyebrow or make a crack about my clumsiness, but he just looks thoughtful. The football pitch notwithstanding, I have become far less clumsy than I used to be.

"And," I go on, feeling for the words as I speak. "I talk more fluently. I understand music. I feel connected to animals and plants and the world around me. Being a vampire doesn't make you less human. It makes you more connected to other kinds of life, and to other kinds of non-life. Air, fire, light. And I get to share all that."

Baz looks surprised, and then happy and sad at the same time. Whatever is in his face must be reflected back in mine, because his eyes grow warm and he leans towards me. I stop talking and meet his lips and I let him fill me until he is everything I know and everything I ever need to understand. We fill each other until our boundaries blur and the questions of what set us apart lose all meaning. All that really matters is what brings us together.

Micah

We wander into the living room and gather all the presents together. There's no tree (inside at least; outside there are plenty) but Baz has tiny spheres of flame twinkling around the room and the gifts look appealig in a heap in front of the fireplace.

Penny's given Simon a Fitbit, and she starts explaining to him how he can plot all his walks with GPS and count his steps and see how they're distributed across the day and if it differs on different days of the week and on and on. I thought it was a silly present- doesn't Penny know she's the only person in the world who likes the idea of graphing the minutiae of daily life? But I'm clearly wrong, because Simon is thrilled and immediately commandeers Baz's phone so he can mess around with it.

Penny's given Baz a self-expanding magickal dictionary of comparative literature so he can track divergent versions of canonical texts. Baz gives Penny a pen that converts anything you write to digital form and automatically saves it in the cloud. It has an alternate setting for scanning magical texts like potion recipes and another for recording spoken spells.

It's a hybrid technological-magical device he designed himself, and it's impressive nearly to the point of being annoying. Back in the States I'm considered something of an oddball for mixing magic with Normal technology, but sitting here surrounded by my fellow oddballs, I feel strangely at home.

I give Simon a liquid nitrogen canister for creating foams out of otherwise boring foods like mushrooms and peas. He grins with gratifying delight and promises to make me a completely molecular tasting menu for New Years.

I haven't gotten anything for Baz, which works out fine because he hasn't gotten anything for me either. I've scanned and hyperlinked all the journals and lab notebooks for Penny, but even an uncouth American like me can figure out that I shouldn't give that to her here.

Simon hands each of us a small, carved wooden box. I am confused when I open mine to find a miniature skeleton made entirely of wood. It seems a bit macabre for the season. But when I lift it out, I see that it's intricately built to exacting proportions, and it's magicked so that when you focus on one spot, the structure shifts and you can observe the precise mechanical functioning of the underlying systems. It's breathtaking, and I can't understand why he would give me something so rare and so valuable.

Then I look up. Penny has a set of wooden atomic elements arranged and colored like the periodic table, with functioning chemical bonds that can be combined to form complex molecules. She's using tiny gestures to move them around the air in front of her, and every time she builds a recognizable molecule it glows briefly and gives off a holographic image of the macroscopic version: salt, water, earth, flame. It's mesmerizing and almost mystical.

Baz has a miniature model of a violin that emits wooden representations of sound waves that cross and cancel and reinforce harmonically in perfect accordance with Newtonian physics, before fading back into the wood of the violin itself. It responds to his movements, and as he hums a chord the wood dances and shifts with his voice.

Simon is watching us all anxiously, as if unsure how his gifts will be received, and I understand suddenly that he's made each of these himself, and designed each of them specifically for each of us.

Penny's described the limitlessness of his magic to me before but I always thought she was exaggerating. It's been a long time since magic felt magical and not just magickal. I'm filled with wonder, and that's not usually my MO. Ask Penny. Ask anyone.

"This isn't possible," I say, gesturing around me and breaking the silence. Simon's face falls a bit and I quickly add, "It's astonishing. It's amazing. It is the most spectacular bit of magic I've ever seen. It's achingly beautiful. And more than a little terrifying. Because. It shouldn't be possible. How is it possible?" Then Simon smiles and Penny smiles and Baz laughs and says "welcome to the family, mate."

 **Penelope**

Christmas day is delightfully lazy. We open presents and then just do our own things, reading and eating and talking. I'm on the couch in the sitting room, messing around with the digitized version of the lab notebooks that Micah made for me for Christmas. It's amazing, he rigged it up so the text recognition interacts with the magical properties index. That means that you can cross reference the notebooks and journals by date or astrological significance, and by search term or spell class.

I've made a lot of progress now on what I think is going on, though it's pretty disturbing. I'm so absorbed in checking assumptions and calculating correlations that I don't notice Simon until he's sitting right next to me, looking over my shoulder, a strange look on his face.

I try to shut my laptop but he stops me with his hand, his eyes scanning the screen as he bites his lips in that way he does when he's worried. I shouldn't have looked at this stuff downstairs. I've gotten so engrossed in the mystery and technicalities of it that I can sometimes forget how personal the whole situation with Lucy and Davy is for him. And I like being down here with him.

"Sorry, Simon," I start to say but then he shushes me. I turn to see what he's looking at, and he has the star chart I derived from the lab notebooks overlaid on the journal entries. He closes his eyes and slumps back on the couch.

I fell terrible. And kind of guilty. And very relieved that Baz hasn't yet noticed anything amiss. Maybe I can fix it before I have to deal with him.

Baz has been touchingly protective of Simon leading up to this visit, making sure none of us did anything to make Simon feel like he was different from the rest of us. We couldn't bring presents from home, even if they were for him. We're not allowed to call home while we're here. Which has been a nice excuse for avoiding my mum, who's still cross with me for spending Christmas with Simon instead of with her.

I take Simon's hand. "Sorry," I say again. "I shouldn't've been looking at this down here."

"S'okay," he says, giving me an unconvincing smile. "It's just kinda weird for me." I give him a chance to gather his thoughts, in case he has more to say. And he does. "I'd always thought I was just being bitter before, feeling like I was a lab specimen he had tagged. It's creepy to know that's exactly what he did."

I'm shocked into silence. How could Simon have understood all that just from just looking at my laptop for a couple of minutes? It's taken me months to decipher the Mage's insane ideas about producing the prophesied Chosen One through a mix of dark magic and carefully timed sex.

It took even longer to understand that these experiments weren't just theoretical, that they had actually been what produced Simon. That Simon was basically the result of a cosmically fucked up lab experiment. And I can't imagine what Simon means by "before;" what would've given him the idea before ever looking at my notes?

I must look as surprised as I feel, because Simon gives me that crooked half-smile of his and says "Still underestimating me, eh Penny?"

"I don't know what you mean," I say with as much dignity as I can muster. Then we're both laughing.

 **Baz**

I hear Bunce say "Sorry, Simon" from three floors away, and I'm flying down the stairs before he even responds. It's lucky for her that he's laughing when I walk in the room. I stand quietly, leaning inconspicuously against the side wall, waiting to find out if she's caused any damage.

I forget everything else when I hear Simon finally tell the story of how he arrived at the orphanage with his name written in ink on his arm. He's never been able to tell me how he got his name, and now I understand why. I imagine him, a tiny infant with a tiny arm covered in a ballpoint tattoo. A used lab rat, disposed of on the steps of hell. I wish the Mage was still alive so I could kill him again, slowly. I wonder if there will ever be an end to the parade of horrors I keep learning about Simon's past.

Simon had half figured it out from some of what the Mage had said to him before we'd arrived at the chapel. He'd then shut it all out of his mind for a year before remembering it again when he saw Penny's notes. The Mage had told Simon that he wasn't the Chosen One from the prophecies.

What the lab notebooks reveal is that he couldn't have been, because they weren't actually prophecies. They were just grist for the mill of the Mage's endless ego. Davy had decided to go ahead and create the Greatest Mage himself, since history hadn't yet been accommodating enough to do it.

Fucking sociopath.

He started running experiments in black magic, and recording the results in those lab notebooks. It's why he began dealing with the magical underworld. He needed to collect unicorn blood, and only the darkest creatures trade in that. (Apparently black magic requires blue blood.)

He spent years doing research and drawing arcane symbols and recording his findings, until he finally figured out how to bring The One who would save us all. Not realizing that he was also creating The One who would come to end us, that they were two sides of the same coin.

I know Penny loves Simon, but she doesn't register the look on his face as she starts warming up to the implications of these new details. She's starting to talk about how it impacted Lucy, how all of Lucy's magic got channeled into Simon and that's why she didn't survive the birth and maybe that's why she… But I don't give her a chance to finish, as Simon's face goes white and his mouth goes sad and guilt starts to darken his eyes.

 **Simon**

I see Baz peel himself from the wall and I stop him before he can throttle Penny. "It's ok," I say, standing up. "Really-" I add, putting a hand on Baz's chest and using it to push him out of the room.

When it's just us, I whisper quietly, "Hey love, it's ok. I can't just, I can't tiptoe around Penny for the rest of my life. Penny needs to understand stuff, and my life is full of… stuff. So. That's just who she is. And she's someone I love. And so I want to. Because. I mean, that's why. I want to go back in there. I want us to be ourselves around each other. I can handle this."

Baz watches my face for a long time after I manage to stutter my way through this little speech. I'm not sure what he sees there, but he finally nods at me and says, "ok then." I'm surprised, and relieved. That was easier than I expected.

"Right, Penny," I say as we walk back into the sitting room. "Keep going. Maybe that's why she what?"

While Baz and I whispered in the hallway, Micah moved to the couch to sit beside Penny. He gives Baz a wary look. Penny looks really upset and doesn't seem to want to talk, which isn't like her. I hate that they think I'm so fragile. Baz reads my mind (again) and sets them straight.

"Snow wants to know. And Penny and I already agreed not to think we know better than he does what's best for him. So carry on, Bunce."

 **Penny**

I wonder what I should do. It feels like one of those moments that's going to push everything in one direction or another. Then I think about how many moments we've already had, how we've somehow emerged from all of them. How things get better even when they seem like the end. How it's turned out best when we let ourselves trust each other. I think about how unlikely this moment is already. Micah's sitting here with the Vampire and the Time Bomb, and it's me who's causing the static. So I take Simon at his word, and I keep going.

"I was thinking, maybe that's why she doesn't look like you. Why you don't look anything like either of them. Because you absorbed so much of their magic, it overrode any other genetic signature." Simon's nodding, so I continue.

"And I've been wondering, ever since you told us about feeling Lucy that last night you stayed in your room at Watford. How could you still feel her, when the Veil had already fallen? How could she have sent you those journals when she should've been on the other side of the Veil?"

Now Baz and Micah are listening too. "I don't know the answer for sure," I continue. "I have two theories. We know that Lucy was an exceptionally powerful magician, and that Simon inherited a concentrated form of her power. So, maybe she can reach him from across the Veil because of that connection, like a magical bridge?"

No one says a word. They're all waiting for me. I keep going.

"The problem with that theory, though, is that then why did she only contact Simon when the Veil lifted? If they have this bridge? And surely there have been been other powerful mages with powerful children, and if they could all get through the Veil, we'd be overrun by the dead."

I wait again. Nothing but silence. It's my show, for better or worse. I plunge on.

"So, my other thought is, maybe Simon got all her power. Maybe she was completely emptied of it, and that's what killed her." I don't let myself look at Baz while I speak. I just look at Simon, willing him with my eyes not to disappear on me.

"Supposedly the Veil works kind of like a magnet for magic. So maybe, since she had no magic left, Lucy was able to avoid getting swept back when the Veil fell after she came through."

"Maybe she wanted to stay with you," I say softly to Simon. "She wanted to be with you, she'd never wanted to leave you in the first place. Maybe she was able to stay on this side without being sucked back, because the Veil couldn't find her. Because you have her magic. She came through the Veil to tell you that, so you'd know. Know it's not your fault. Know where you came from. Know that she loves you, she always loved you."

Simon's looking at the floor. Baz is looking at Simon. Micah's looking at me. I'm not sure whether or not to share my other questions, but I've gone this far, and I can't imagine a better chance will come along to think it through all together.

"The other thing I wonder about," I plunge on, "is why a mage as powerful as Lucy let herself get trapped that way? I keep coming back to the idea that the Mage must have used some kind of dark magic to tie her to him, or to keep her from seeing him clearly. But I can't find records of it in his notebooks."

"He's really methodical about logging every other aspect of his experiments: what kind of blood to use, word combinations, time of day, day of year, year in cycle. Language layering, shape marking, pattern making and precise timing. All of which culminated in their conceiving Simon at a particular set of magically specified space-time coordinates."

(I ignore the boys' simultaneous grimaces at the word "conceive." I mean, how old are we anyway?)

Baz looks at me thoughtfully. Simon's kind of chewing his lips. I'd almost forgotten Micah's there, until he clears his throat. "Well," he says. "I know I'm the one here who's the least familiar with the situation, but I do have one thought."

I look at him in amazement. Is he trying to be tactful? Maybe British propriety is rubbing off on him. Hah. He'd be furious if he knew that thought had just gone through my mind.

 **Micah**

I'm not sure why I speak up. I'd sworn after the near disaster of bringing up Baz's completely obvious transformation from undead to alive, that I wouldn't try to inject reality into these lunatics' points of view.

But I'm worried that Penny has gone a bit too far out on a limb here, or taken Baz too seriously about it being ok to talk about this stuff with no holds barred. He may be charming and kind of brilliant, but he's still a fucking vampire.

The thing is, the Mage fooled a lot of people. He didn't need magic to fool Lucy. He fooled Simon too. Penny's bound to eventually draw the same conclusion I have. And she's not good at self-censoring. Neither am I, for that matter. But I want to spare her from having to be the one to say it.

I try to at least be politic about it. "Speaking as an outsider, Lucy's behavior doesn't seem that different from how most people in the British Coven behaved around the Mage. Unless you think he was using dark magic to control everyone who supported him, there's no reason to think he had to use it on Lucy. I mean, Simon, did it ever feel to you like he was using something to cloud your judgment when you were following him?"

Predictably, the situation kind of explodes. Baz is on his feet, fangs out, glaring at me through red-ringed grey eyes. "You mean besides manipulating him by pretending to rescue him from the hell he'd put him in? Besides telling him he was the Chosen One of ancient prophecy who was charged with saving all magickind by blindly following the Mage and his army?"

Simon stands and puts a restraining hand on Baz's shoulder. Penny leaps between me and Baz and stares him down. It's all amusingly melodramatic.

Then Penny says "Hey, guys, my tampon's leaking and I really just have to go change it. But I don't want to miss this conversation. So don't talk about it again til I get back down, yeah?" And she leaves to go upstairs.

The atmosphere in the room is still remarkably uncomfortable, but now in a totally different way. We all kind of shuffle around for a minute, until Baz says, "Anyone for some tea?"

I suppose stuffiness and propriety do have their benefits. Simon nods gratefully and so do I. I hate tea, actually. But now doesn't seem like the right moment to bring that up.

 **Penny**

My tampon isn't leaking. I'm not even on my period. The situation was about to go sideways and there's no surer way to divert a bunch of boys than to mention bloody tampons. When I get back downstairs, they're all in the kitchen drinking tea. I join them, grateful for once that boys are such idiots.


	9. Breaking

**Baz**

Something strange has been happening to Simon. It's like he's getting fuzzy at the edges, like his boundaries are blurring. That used to happen back when his magic was out of control, when his fear or anger were liable to blow up everything unfortunate enough to be near him at the time.

That was hard to deal with, but this scares me more. It's hard to explain. It's like he's losing track of where he ends and everything else begins. It's like the physical world is conspiring with his magic to absorb him, to erase him. He's gone from being the Chosen One to being at One with the universe. He shouldn't have to deal with being any One anymore. He should just get to be anyone.

I've noticed it happening over the past couple of weeks, especially when he works on those projects of his. It doesn't seem to make him unhappy. I don't even know if he's noticed it.

I feel at a loss, I don't know how to navigate this on my own. I need to talk to Bunce. Talking to Bunce always makes me feel like I'm making progress on a problem. I've been hoping to talk to her ever since she arrived, but it hasn't happened yet.

It's been a bit tense between us. The last time we saw each other was when we'd driven together to Niall's to rescue Simon. By then, neither of us had slept for two days, and we were both in shock.

We never talked about what happened. I've never acknowledged to her that she was right from the beginning. That my hesitation about confronting my family came at a terrible cost to Simon. I have no idea what she thinks about it, or what she thinks about me.

While she's been here, she's dissected my life (quite literally) and told Simon that he was the result of a lab experiment and the cause of his mother's death. Not an auspicious start to the conversation.

But there's no one else I can talk to. Penny and Micah will be gone in a few days, and when she leaves, so do my chances of talking about this.

I don't even know how to approach her. What would I say? Hey Penny, want to go for a walk with me without Simon or Micah so I can burden you with all my troubles? I might have to work on a better line than that one.

 **Penny**

We're more than halfway through our trip, and I still haven't talked to Baz. I mean, of course I've talked to him, but I haven't had an actual conversation with him. We'd grown almost close when we lived in London. I'd even started considering him as my fourth friend. I don't believe in having more than five friends, so four is big.

I think he's angry with me for abandoning Simon. The last time I saw Baz, he was carrying Simon out of that dungeon and setting fire to the world.

When they were still in England, when Simon came out of that hole looking like that… I kind of avoided the two of them. Micah was there, and my parents, and Baz was so possessive and protective of Simon that I was able to convince myself that I didn't have to be strong anymore. That I could fall apart and let other people pick up the pieces.

Then I let Baz take Simon to France without me. That was a mistake. I should never have let Simon go. I should never have let Micah talk me into it. I don't love the idea of talking to Baz about it, but I know that it's inevitable, so I may as well get to it now.

 **Baz**

I'm discovering that cowardice has its advantages. Bunce approached me this morning, saying we should talk, completely saving me from having to figure out how to ask the same of her.

I think back to that day in the woods, when I was too scared to kiss Simon even though I wasn't even planning to live long enough to suffer the consequences. It appears that when I completely fail to act, Simon and Penny act for me. Not something I'm terribly proud of.

I'm disappointed with myself for being so nervous. What's the worst Penny can do to me? After everything that's happened, how can I be afraid of a short girl with frizzy hair and crazy glasses?

Crowley, who am I kidding? Penny's absolutely terrifying.

We go riding. The weather is clear, and the horses haven't gotten much exercise while Simon and I have been on our own. Simon won't go near a horse. He won't even discuss it. I never knew that Penny rides, but it turns out she's brilliant at it. Of course. She's brilliant at everything, isn't she?

At the start of the ride, Penny and I were focused on getting used to the horses and setting the pace, so the silence between us seemed forgivable. But by now it's unavoidably clear that we're both apprehensive about being alone together, about having to talk.

I am determined not to be cowed into inaction a third time, so I turn to Penny and speak. I'm not sure what I'm going to say until I hear myself saying it.

"I can't forgive myself either, so I don't expect you to forgive me. But I still need to tell you that I'm sorry. I should have listened to you." Merlin, when did I start to sound so much like Malcolm? It's disturbing. Penny looks at me thoughtfully.

"I guess I can stop worrying now that you're planning to rip my head off for abandoning Simon and then spending Christmas forcing him to revisit the ghosts of his past," she says, much to my surprise. "What are _you_ apologizing for, anyway?"

I'm pig sick of having no idea what's going on. Humans are too exhausting. And I'm irritated, too. It's not like Bunce to play dumb, but there's no way she doesn't know what I'm apologizing for. I don't bother setting the context, because there is only one context that matters in this conversation.

"Penny, you said immediately that we should go to my parents to find Simon. I cost him a day in hell because I hesitated for so long. That's why you're angry with me, that's why you won't talk to me, and that's why I'm apologizing."

"Baz," she says, more softly. "I'm not angry at you. Is that what you've thought all this time? Is that why you've been avoiding me? I thought _you_ were angry with _me_ for abandoning Simon, for letting him out of my sight, for staying behind in London and leaving you to deal with all this shit on your own."

I'm startled. That interpretation of events would never have occurred to me. "That's absurd," I say "You had to stay in London. I had to escape the Coven. Simon had to regain consciousness. We all did what we needed to do. I've only been avoiding you because I presume you're intelligent enough to know how badly I failed Simon by not listening to you."

"Now you're the one being absurd," she responds. "I'm a big girl, Baz. I could have driven to your parents' place myself. Or called the Coven. I was as hesitant as you were. I wanted to believe there was some other explanation too. And I was scared to face the situation alone, I was grateful to have you with me. I'm as responsible for the timing as you are. You can't blame yourself for what they did to Simon."

"Really?" I answer, more sarcastically than I intend. "I can't blame myself for being friends with the people who left Simon in a dungeon to die, for not acting sooner to confront them, for not having ever alerted the Coven in the first place to the things the Families were capable of?"

"Fair enough. You can blame yourself," says Penny, and I'm hurt. Which is ridiculous, since I'm the one who has spent the last several minutes insisting to her that I was at fault. I wonder if I'm actually expressing regret for what I've done, or am I just fishing for reassurance that I'm not to blame? I shudder to think I might be even more like Malcolm than I thought.

Then she continues talking. "But I don't think you should. Blame yourself, I mean. I don't blame you. Though I do find your self-flagellation reassuring, since I've been doing the same thing to myself over these past months. Seeing you do it makes it obvious that it's just a defense against being helpless. We'd rather be at fault then be helpless."

That's so true that I pull up short. She keeps riding, still talking. I have no trouble hearing her of course, even as she moves farther away. "I mean, that's such basic psychology, I can't believe I didn't see it right away. This must be what it's like for Simon, knowing things and not knowing them at the same time." She comes to a halt when she finally realizes I've fallen behind, and I push my horse to catch up with her.

"So, other than blaming yourself for things you didn't do and can't control, what's on your mind?" she asks, and I'm smiling despite the self-loathing. It's a relief. I wish I'd had the courage to approach her earlier.

 **Baz**

I try to explain to Penny what I think is happening to Simon. She listens closely as I tell her about how he seems to be merging with some yogic All-ness, but she doesn't say anything.

Then I find myself telling her more than I'd intended. I tell her how I've started to feel like I might be disappearing, too, but not the way Simon is. It's more like, all the things that used to define me seem to be changing. Some of that's for the best, I imagine. Not being efficiently cruel all the time. Not hiding my desires. Not pretending I'm not gay, not pretending I'm not a vampire.

But it's a loss, too. Other parts of myself have started to erode, parts that I'm less sure I don't mind losing. It's hard for me to hide my feelings even when I want to. I smile more often than I sneer. Maybe that's good? But I don't like it, it makes me feel vulnerable and on edge.

And I've been losing more than just my talent for hiding in the open. A loss so fundamental to who I am, that I don't know how to express it. It's like, I've lost the thrill of the chase. There's no one for me to talk to here. No one for me to argue with. No one for me to be better than. No one for me to compete with and win.

Competing with Simon isn't satisfying, because it's like we're playing with orthogonal sets of rules. It's like the wind trying to race a shadow. We're carried by different currents.

Competing with Simon isn't satisfying, and talking to him isn't that satisfying either. He likes to connect things, and I like to break shit down.

For a while, the sex was satisfying enough to mask the fact that something else is missing. I've started to wonder if Simon and I ever had anything else in common to begin with. Besides being wickedly good looking, of course. And completely messed up.

Why am I telling her all this? I intended to talk to her about Simon, to get her perspective on whether I'm overreacting, over-worrying. Heartfelt confessionals are not part of my unspoken deal with Bunce. I wonder how I'd react if the roles were reversed. I wonder how she'll react to me.

She listens quietly, without interrupting, and then says with conviction, "it's the Snog to Slog Effect, but on steroids."

 **Penny**

I don't know how to react to Baz being so emotionally open with me. It violates some implicit rule about our friendship.

I don't have Simon's talent for not-knowing. I can't just block out the memory of all the years Baz spent trying to trick or hurt or kill Simon. I'm more or less willing to move on from all that, to accept Baz's idiosyncrasies now that I've been given a glimpse into how he thinks and why he acted the way he did. If you can refer to attempted murder as an idiosyncrasy.

I know Baz loves Simon, and that Simon loves him and is happier when Baz is around. I'm able to think of Baz as a friend (maybe). But I haven't forgiven him to the extent of being ready to cry on his shoulder, or to let him cry on mine.

I know I should probably say something warm and reassuring, but I can't bring myself to do it. Besides, it's fun to get a rise out of Baz. So I explain Micah's reductive theory of relationships.

"When you first fall in love," I explain, "it's like you can't believe that you get to have this person, that you get to kiss them and touch them every day. But any semi-sentient creature would eventually stop feeling surprised, as day after day passes and it continues to be true that yes, indeed, you can kiss them."

I ignore his obvious impatience. "Soon the evidence becomes overwhelming that you should, in fact, not only believe but _expect_ that you will kiss this person. That you will be kissing the very same person every day, day after day.

"At this point, you've evolved from the state of snog to the state of slog. What used to be thrilling becomes drudgery. By then you've also managed to alienate everyone else in your life with the mindless narcissism of the newly smitten. Isolation makes the object of your passion not only boring but insufficient to fill the holes you suddenly find in your life." I'm just getting to the middle of the theory when Baz finally loses patience.

"Please, Bunce, spare me the wisdom of Saint Micah. It's patronizing. And facile. And bloody irritating," Baz snaps.

I get annoyed, probably because he's right. The snog-to-slog theory is overly simplistic. But it's also kind of true.

It's unfair of me to be angry, since I was trying to bait him to begin with. But my brain isn't interested in reason at the moment, and I give in to my irritation.

"Is it? Let's see. So far in your life with Simon, the two of you spent the better part of a decade under orders to murder each other. You fell in love only to have Simon immediately exposed as the Humdrum. This leads both of you to the chapel where Simon kills his pseudo-but-actually-real-father after watching said father murder one of his closest friends.

"Oh, and did I mention that your boyfriend now has wings and a tail and looks like the devil incarnate? Your relationship is stuck in suspended animation while you finish school.

"Life is just starting to resemble normal, when you're both laid low by a photograph of a teenage Mage holding hands with my mum's best friend. In case this isn't enough, you then have to rescue Simon from your friend's dungeon and spell him back to life.

"Can you honestly tell me that it's surprising that two months without catastrophe and death might seem boring in comparison?"

What is wrong with me? Why am I being so mean? I wish I could take it back, go back in time and say something kinder. I brace myself for his response.

 **Baz**

I'm torn between being hurt and being amused by Penny's summary of my life with Simon. I'm leaning towards hurt (why is she being so condescending?) when I'm struck by something she said.

"I never thought of it that way before. That your mums were best friends. And you became best friends without ever knowing it."

Penny looks thoughtful for a second. "Yeah, that's strange," is all she says. She looks relieved at my response, and the mood lightens.

"You know," I add, "everything you said basically applies to you, too."

"Right," she says dryly. "With the notable exception of the mutual call to murder followed by months of bone-melting sex."

"Yes," I agree. "With those small but notable exceptions."

"Baz," she says, more seriously. "Try to give yourself a break. And maybe also, you guys should think about getting out of here. My guess is that this much isolation isn't great for Simon, either. You both need to be around other people. No one can be everything, no matter how much you love them. Have you thought about going back to uni?"

"London is probably out of the question," I respond.

"Then transfer to Harvard," she says. "Come to Boston with me and Micah."

And bring Simon, is the unvoiced logic of her proposal. I'd never seriously considered the idea before, but when she says it, it seems obvious.

I thought I'd lay low for a year and then head back to the UK, maybe read for my degree at Edinburgh. But the idea of jumping the pond feels like a warm breeze on a cold day.

I keep my thoughts to myself for now. I turn my horse and call over my shoulder "try and keep up," and we're both flying back to the house, feeling lighter than we have in a long, long time.

 **Baz**

The feeling of relief doesn't last long. I may have told Penny too much, but there's still a lot I didn't tell her. She doesn't know about the promises I've whispered in the dark, to always watch over him. She doesn't know that I promised him at the edge of a cliff that I'll love him forever, that I promised him I will never change my mind. She doesn't know that he believed he could never be loved until I promised him he could, because I would always love him.

What will happen if he ever finds out I can't keep my promises? That I won't love him forever. That I've already started to not love him. That I'm not sure if I ever really loved him the way I told him I did.

What happens to the boy who escaped from the world where children aren't loved, when I send him back there?

I can't bring myself to do that to him, so I can't leave. I feel suffocated, claustrophobic. The feeling of being trapped starts to destroy the one constant in my life with Simon. The ever-present desire to kiss him, to touch him, to hold him, has warped into its own dark reflection. Now I can hardly stand to be near him.

I take refuge in knowing he's oblivious, that he won't know anything about this as long as I have the strength to keep it from him.

 **Simon**

I know that something's wrong. Baz is distant, and acting strange. I try not to feel hurt by it. After all, I'm the one who insisted that Penny and Micah come. I'm the one who forced company on him, so I can't blame him if he withdraws.

Things had seemed ok earlier in the week. But I feel like since then, he's been finding reasons not to be wherever I am. It feels like he can't stand to be in the same room as me. Which must be paranoid, right?

But this morning, when I wake up, I am alone. I haven't woken up alone since getting to France. I head downstairs, and find him sitting in the kitchen. I ask if everything's ok. He says, not looking up from what he's reading, that he just went out early to hunt.

He's not looking at me, so he doesn't see my smile morph into a grimace at this non-explanation. When he hunts in the morning before I wake up, he always comes back and slips into our bed, deliciously cold, so we can wake up together.

I pour myself some tea, working up the courage to say something, to clear the air. To confirm that I'm just being paranoid. As I hesitate, thinking of what to say, he stands up smoothly and nonchalantly walks out of the room. He doesn't even turn to look at me before he's gone. So I stand there, the words stuck in my throat, choking me.

Later, I am coming downstairs just as he is coming in from outside. A gust of cold follows him through the door. I step towards him, but he brushes by me, saying he needs to head upstairs and shower because he'd been riding. I try to stop him for a kiss, but he pulls away.

This can't be what I think. There can't really be a pattern forming. There has to be some other explanation for why he's pulling away. Maybe he hears something I can't. Probably it's just Micah coming down the hall. Baz is always more reserved around Micah. But Baz leaves, and no one else comes.

I stand there as my tea gets cold. My hurt concentrates itself into a physical pain in the center of my chest. It's not quite where my heart is; it's a little behind it, a bit to the side of it. I tell myself not to be so sensitive. I remind myself that Baz hasn't had much peace or space with Micah and Penny around. I tell myself to be patient.

I wonder if it has something to do with Malcolm. I still have no idea what happened when they talked. I just know how upset Baz was when he came out.

That must be it. Malcolm must have given him an ultimatum. He must be struggling with that. I'm ashamed of myself for being hurt instead of being worried about him. I'll talk to him about it tonight.

But in the evening, he glances up from his laptop and tells me to go up to bed without him, there's stuff he needs to work on. This isn't unprecedented, but it is unusual. Penny and Micah have already gone up to bed, so I find myself alone. I decide to go for a walk, my favorite refuge when I don't know what to do.

I let my mind wander. It hurts to think about Baz. So I try to think about Penny instead. It's not a great strategy, because I find myself thinking about the notebooks, the journals, the Mage, Lucy. I think about Davy and Lucy living in isolation in the country. Kind of like me and Baz. I wonder if it had been cozy and sweet for them at first, the way it had been for me and Baz. Baz.

I try again. I think about whittling. I think about what it's like to carve something out of different kinds of wood. I think about how satisfying it is to build something complex by carving smaller pieces and joining them together. I think about how Baz and I fit together, like we're pieces of a puzzle ourselves.

I give up on trying not to think about Baz, and head back to the house.

I know Baz can hear me as I walk home, and I smile at the thought of him on the couch by the fire where we've spent so many nights. I start to walk faster, eager to see him. He'll take me in his arms and scold me for jumping to such wild conclusions. He'll kiss my hurt away, and things will be good again.

But I see the light in the sitting room turn off just before I get to the house. A minute later, the light in our bedroom turns on. By the time I get to the front door, that light is off too.

He knows I'm here, and he left before I could come inside. I can't face going upstairs to find him pretending to be asleep so he doesn't have to talk to me. I sit on the couch, thinking about nothing, concentrating on being nothing and feeling nothing.

 **Baz**

I don't know what I think I'm doing. I can't just avoid him forever and hope he doesn't notice. But I can't stand to look at him. I can't look into his guileless blue eyes and pretend I'm still in love with him. I know I have to talk to him, and I promise myself that I'll talk to him later tonight, when he gets back from his walk.

But when I hear him coming back, I panic. I convince myself that I can't talk to him downstairs, in a public space where Penny and Micah could walk in on us at any moment. I go up to our bedroom. I'll talk to him when he comes up.

But he doesn't come up. I hear his steps falter as he gets to the front door. I hear him come in; I hear his footsteps stop. I can imagine him perfectly, standing in the foyer with messy hair, his face red from the cold. Then he starts walking again. I hear his steps bring him to the couch, and then nothing.

I wait, certain that he'll move to the kitchen in a moment, gathering a snack to bring upstairs. I feel burdened by knowing him so well. I can anticipate everything he's going to do before he does it.

He thinks I can read his mind. But you don't need to be a mind reader to read Simon Snow. He wears his thoughts on his body like a suit. I feel annoyed in advance about the mess he'll make, the crumbs in the bed.

As the minutes tick by and I hear nothing else, my annoyance turns to frustration. What is he waiting for? How long does he expect me to wait up for him?

And then I hear the quiet sound of him crying. I hear the sound change and become muffled as his crying turns to sobbing and he pushes his face into the cushion. I hear the echo of his fist as he punches the couch, and I almost smile. He's always punching things.

My smile quickly turns sour as I realize he's not as oblivious as I always hope he'll be. I feel terrible. I feel like a piece of shit. I hate myself. I think about going down to him, but the thought of having to hold him and comfort him suffocates me. Going down the stairs feels like descending into a tomb. Like stepping into quicksand. Like suffocating. So I do nothing but listen to him cry.

Finally he's quiet. He must have fallen asleep. Which is more than I manage to do. I stay awake until the light starts to fill the room, and finally fall asleep at dawn.

 **Micah**

The weather sure changes fast around here. Things have gone from cheerful to strained with bewildering speed. Penny just says that Simon and Baz are having some problems. Well, duh. I figured that much out for myself.

It doesn't surprise me. Holidays are stressful, and the second year of a relationship is always the roughest. It's hard to get over the hump of moving from infatuation to coexistence. It's worth it once you get there, but there's no way to know that until you do.

We're supposed to leave on New Year's Day. Day after tomorrow. But I start advocating for heading out tomorrow morning instead. It's no fun being bystanders in someone else's drama.

I don't phrase it that way to Penny, of course. I suggest that they might do better with some privacy. She knows me well enough to realize what I actually mean, though, and I smile sheepishly as she glares at me. It was worth a try.

 **Baz**

It started the other day, when I was looking into plane tickets. I wanted to finally take Simon on that damn trip of his.

I was transferring money to a local bank to pay for the tickets when I noticed some oddities in the account. I started digging around and discovered that Simon had been added to it. I kept digging and found Simon everywhere. He had been added to every one of my parent's accounts. And the trusts, the will, the emergency plans. I even found his name on the deed to this house, here, in France.

There had always been a clean divide between Simon and my past, my family. My wealth. When I saw his name insinuated into every part of that life, the two worlds collided. I felt buried in the rubble of that crash.

Thinking about having to integrate Simon into that world makes my stomach hurt. I try to imagine him carrying on a conversation at the club.

He'd be a disaster. This is the man who wore a school uniform to a gathering of vampires.

He can't ride, can't play chess, can't discuss music, can't analyze literature. Come to think of it, what do I even talk to him about? We never talk about anything outside the daily mundanity of our lives, like picking up milk or remembering to shut in the goats when it storms.

 **Penny**

When I come downstairs this morning, Simon is asleep in his clothes on the couch. My heart breaks, and I curse Baz under my breath. I make a lot of noise in the kitchen to give Simon a chance to clear out if he'd rather not have to acknowledge to me that things are that bad.

As I hear him head upstairs, I almost come out. I want to make him talk to me. I want to hold on to him and never let him go. But I've promised myself not to do that anymore, so I stay where I am.

 **Simon**

I hear Penny banging around in the kitchen. I'm embarrassed that she has to create this diversion so I can sneak upstairs and pretend I didn't just spend the night on the couch. I head up to my room, feeling a bit sick, not knowing what to expect when I see Baz. But he is fast asleep (or pretending to be) when I get there, and he doesn't move as I come in and gather up some fresh clothes.

I decide to shower and dress in one of the guest bathrooms so I don't have to deal with the intimate awkwardness of the situation. I have a good cry as the shower runs, secure in the knowledge that the sound of the water will mask the sound of my tears. So that Baz won't know how weak I am, or how hurt.

I couldn't stop myself last night, and I know he probably heard me. And I know he didn't come down to see what was wrong. And I know that he knows that I know. So I'd rather just hide right now.

I feel a bit ashamed of myself as I dress, though. Why am I acting like everything's all about me? Why aren't I asking him if he's ok, asking him why he's so distant? Why aren't I helping him deal with whatever he's going through?

So I walk back into our room.

 **Baz**

Simon walks in, wearing fresh clothes and smelling like the soap we keep in the guestroom. He must have showered in the guest bathroom. I feel annoyed and hurt, even though I want to be free of him.

His eyes and mouth are soft, set in an irritating expression. It takes me a second to recognize it. Compassion. I react with a sneer. It feels good on my face, like an old friend.

He hesitates for a second when he sees my expression, but then continues walking over to me. I see him set his shoulders, see him decide to approach me despite the obvious signals I'm sending that I don't want him. So stupidly brave.

"Oi," he says softly, and the kindness in his voice makes me angry. "Everything ok, love?" The word love feels like a straightjacket. I nod and turn to pick up my phone from the bedside table. He tentatively touches my arm, and I freeze. He tries again.

"It's about Malcolm, yeah? He's pushing you to choose?" he asks. Presumptuous bastard.

"No," I bite out. "Quite to the contrary. Malcolm apologized and asked for permission to remain in my life." I get a savage satisfaction from watching Simon's face as he processes this information. I don't add the bit about the accounts. I'm not ready to address that yet.

"What is it, then?" he asks, more uncertainly this time. Good. "And don't say nothing, I know something's going on."

"Well done, Snow. You really can string facts together if you put your head to it, can't you?" I say snidely. He looks hurt.

I steel myself. I'm going to tell him. Now.

"It's not Malcolm," I say cleanly. "It's you. I don't love you anymore." I have the decency not to add that I'm not sure if I ever did.

 **Simon**

I feel like he's stabbed me. I wish he had stabbed me. I have to get out of here. I turn around and leave the room, leave the house, leave the grounds.

 **Baz**

It's a relief to have told him. I heard him slamming his way out of the house, so I go downstairs, certain that I won't have to deal with him while I make myself some tea.

 **Penny**

I see Simon leave the house. Something's off. But not _off_ off, like it used to be. I mean, he doesn't look like he's about to go off. He looks kind of blurry and a maybe a bit transparent. Flickering. I follow him with my eyes until I hear Baz walk into the kitchen.

"What's going on?" I ask.

"I told him," he says calmly, pouring himself a cup.

"Told him?" I ask, confused. And a little scared. "Told him what, exactly?"

"Same as I told you. That I don't love him."

I'm shocked into stillness. "You're a right fucking bastard, Baz," I manage to say before I'm out the door, running after Simon.

 **Micah**

I arrive downstairs in time to see Penny run out the door without her coat. Baz is standing in the kitchen, drinking tea from a cheery yellow mug. I can't tell if he's actually calm or if he's just pretending to hold his shit together.

"What's going on," I ask, knowing perfectly well what's going on. "Trouble in paradise?"

"It's none of your bloody business," he snaps, and I smile as he stalks out if the room. This is the Baz I know and hate. This is the Baz I've been expecting to see all week. I knew that the other Baz had to be a sham.

I'm confident now that Penny will let us leave early. I head upstairs to start packing.

 **Simon**

I slam into trees as I walk. I kick rocks, punch fenceposts. Anything to feel, so as not to feel. Something like a laugh escapes my lips. A year has passed, but nothing has changed. Well, except that I killed the Mage. That part is real. But not who I am, what I am. What Baz thinks I am. Where I belong.

Last Christmas, as Baz and I walked back towards his house in Hampshire at dawn after the Humdrum had attacked, he told me _I_ was the Humdrum. We came to the dead spot around his house. He looked me right in the eyes, and said, "Snow, run. Go. You did this."

I'd just saved him from the Humdrum, and he believed I was destruction itself. That I was the greatest threat the world of magic had ever faced. How could I ever have believed he'd see me as anything else?

I was heir to the man who murdered his mother. Who hired numpties to keep him in a coffin. Who raided his house and stole his family's treasures. He hated me for so long. He tried to kill me so many times. How could I be idiotic enough to think that would change?

He's wealthy, and refined, and well connected. How could I ever have thought he'd settle for me, a pathetic reject from a public home?

But the pain of it, the sheer fucking stupidity of it, is that I _did_. I did think he would. I did think he had.

Not at first. At first, when he sent me away, when he was judge and jury and banished me as the Humdrum, I was gutted. I grew wings and a tail. I embodied the devil he saw in me. He came to Penny's house the next day, all cool intelligence and clean analysis as he laid out the evidence that damned me.

I stayed a devil for a long, long time. Until Baz told me he chose me. He told me I was a hero, not a devil. He touched me as though I was something good, something pure, something bright. He kissed me like I deserved his love. I was able to shed the devil and embody the person. Just me. And him.

He became everything to me, but I stayed nothing to him. The pain of it is hard to bear, and I fold over, unable to stand. My head sinks down into the snow. I am the snow. I am nothing.

 **Penny**

I find Simon bent double, head on the ground, completely still. I run over to him and force him up. Force him to look at me, to stand straight. He collapses onto me and I try to support his weight as he weeps onto my jumper. At some point he notices that I'm not wearing a coat or proper shoes, and I'm shivering. He covers me in a blanket that just emerges from the air around me. His magic still pours from him so easily. I hold him, and he cries, and then I take him back to the house.

I could kill Baz. I want tear the flesh from his bones and throw what is left to the wolves.

 **Baz**

I watch the sorry parade as if from a great distance. Some part of my brain registers Simon's broken face, and it hurts. It scares me. That part of me fills with shame until it feels like it will burst with weight of it. Some part of my brain is screaming at me to fix this before it's too late. To stop all this from happening. To go to Simon, to hold him, to make him whole. To beg his forgiveness and fall at his feet.

But the larger part of me is relieved to be blank again. To be apart from everyone and everything around me, secure in the fortress of my detachment. To not feel. To be far. To be safe inside myself, in that removed place where nothing can touch me.

I used to be alive only for Simon. I could bear to feel and to love and to live when it was just me and Simon. If I have to be alive around everyone else now, all the time, I will fail. I will collapse. I cannot lose my shield of stillness, the cold protection of my death. I cannot become alive everywhere, all the time.

There is nothing I can do to stop what I have set in motion, so I watch it happen as if on a stage. As if it is someone else's life.

 **Simon**

I sit in a haze of pain, surrounded by activity. Micah is packing up the car. Penny is gathering my things. Apparently she is taking me with her, taking me away from here.

I don't care either way. I wish I were dead. I wish they'd never pulled me from that dungeon. I was so close then, so close to dead. I wish I'd jumped from that cliff at Baz's house. I wish the Mage had succeeded in killing me a year ago. I wish my mother had never followed him down the path that led to my creation. I wish I had never been born. I wish I could disappear.

 **Micah**

Penny is trembling, I think with rage, but it could be cold. Or fear. I quickly pack up the car, glad to be getting the hell way from here. Penny bundles Simon into the back seat, and throws a bag of his stuff into the trunk of the car. I drive and drive and drive. I take Penny and Simon away from here, leaving Baz far behind, alone.

 **Baz**

They've all left. Simon went with them. It's like last Christmas Eve, but with Micah playing the role of Agatha.

I walk to the window as the car moves away. I look down at the glass, and breathe on it. Nothing happens.

I wander through the empty house, relishing the silence. I walk through the rooms, thinking of the past week. I think about Micah accusing Simon of willingly following the Mage, no magical coercion necessary. Micah was right. Simon left me to face the numpties alone last Christmas while he ran off to find the man who had hired them to kidnap me.

I sit in the blissful stillness of the main room, and light a fire with a flick of my finger. My mind continues on the path it has started down. Simon, the Mage's fucking heir. The Mage's pawn. His father's unwitting, unwilling tool.

His father. Good god. His actual fucking father, who posed for a decade as his beneficent foster father. The man who sent Simon away every summer. Who planned Simon's conception with chilling detachment.

Is that what I want to be? Cold, detached? Like the Mage? Is that what I am? Do I want to join him on the list of people who have hurt, used and discarded Simon?

Simon, who had the courage to turn his back on everything he knew, to help me avenge my mother, to protect me from his father.

I start to feel sick. What the hell have I just done? What's wrong with me? How could all of that have happened so fast?

I try to recreate the sense of suffocation. I try to remember what made me think I wanted to be rid of Simon. The feeling falls apart like ash when I try to hold it, to look at it.

How could I have imagined that I didn't love him, when I've never loved anyone more? How could I have believed I was trapped by him, when he accepted me completely for exactly who I am? How could I think I was better than him, when he has always been braver and truer and stronger than me?

I stand up to go to him, to find him and tell him I'm sorry and make everything ok again. I want to hold him and kiss the hurt away.

I look out the window and realize he's not there. They're long gone. Fuck. Why did Penny and Micah leave so fast? Why did Simon go with them? Why didn't I intervene?

It sinks in that this is real, this is happening. I've missed my chance to fix things. Simon doesn't even have a phone. I've completely destroyed the best thing that's ever happened in my life. I've driven away the only person who's ever seen all of me and loved me anyway.

It's not fair for something to be destroyed so completely, so quickly. It can't be destroyed. They'll come back. I'll call Penny's phone. I'll talk to Simon.

No one answers. I leave a text for her to call me.

I walk into our room. My room, now, I think, and pain shoots through me at the thought. I see something on the table on his side of the bed. I walk over and pick it up. It's a book; I recognize it. It's the little journal I gave Simon on his pretend birthday. I open it now, curious.

It's filled with sketches of me, of the house, of bits of wood and the projects he was working on. Recipes, reminders. Scraps of things I've said. Some notes. Things he wants to tell Penny. On one page, he describes sometimes feeling like he might float away with the clouds.

I sink down onto the bed. My tears soak the pages but I can't let go of the journal. My stomach cramps painfully and I fold myself over the book, cradling it to my chest.

I never knew that he saw himself disappearing. I know that I saw it. When the boundaries between him and the world started blurring, I was scared. I think I was so scared that he was going to disappear, that I convinced myself that I _wanted_ him to disappear.

I think about seeing his face when he talked about how the Mage wrote his name on his arm. His face, so broken, I couldn't stand it. So I broke him myself, just so I wouldn't be standing by, helplessly watching it happen.

Merlin, what have I done?

There has to be a way for me to fix this. Surely I get another chance. Don't I? Surely I can't have destroyed in a couple of days what has been growing for so long?

I race down to my car. I can drive faster than Penny. And I know the area, I know all the shortcuts. I will get to London before they do. I will be waiting in their flat when they get there. I will do whatever it takes to fix this.

After only a few minutes, I have to pull over to the side of the road, overwhelmed and blinded by more visions of Simon's face. The look of pain that I'd put there. How could I have done that?

I wince at the memory of listening to him cry and staying upstairs, doing nothing. No wonder Penny and Micah packed his things into their car and took him away from me. I think of the fury and hatred on Penny's face as she looked back at me before getting into the car. I remember Simon's prone form in the back seat.

I don't deserve another chance.

I turn the car around and slowly drive back to the empty house and its clear, damning windows.

 **Simon**

I watch sightlessly as the road disappears beneath the wheels of Penny's car. I think I might be crying, but I can't feel my body. It brings me back to my time at Niall's, in that pit. Then, I thought of Baz to escape. Now the thought of Baz is my prison and my rack.

I think back to those perfect weeks just before Dev tricked me into his car. I think of Baz singing to me in the grass. He told me he loves me forever. I bend over as my heart clenches painfully. How could that have all been a lie?

 **Micah**

I'm not the world's biggest Simon Snow fan, but even I've got to feel bad for the guy. He's asleep now in the back of the car. He cried silently for the first couple of hours of the drive. The lack of sound as he wept is one of the worst things I've ever heard.

We're halfway through the drive, about 20 minutes shy of Paris, when Penny turns to me and whispers.

 **Penny**

I must have fallen asleep. I wake up and Micah tells me we're about half-way through the trip. We're in civilization again, not far from Paris. We stop at the side of the road to grab some food from a little stand, and I glance at my phone. There's a text from Baz. From like 4 hours ago.

"Micah," I whisper when he gets back into the car with our sandwiches. "I think we might have just made a terrible mistake."

He doesn't even have to ask what I mean. He just nods as he starts the car up again.

"Yeah," he says. "I was thinking the same thing."

"I was just so angry when I saw Simon like that," I say, and start to cry. Micah reaches over with his free hand to hold mine. He's so good at driving on the wrong side of the road. Which he calls the right side of the road. Which, technically, it is. I could never hold hands whilst driving in France.

My mind is wandering, trying to escape its own thoughts.

"Actually," whispers Micah. "I think it might be my fault."

"What? How do you mean?" I ask.

"I just wanted to get out of there," he confesses. "I was kind an asshole. I was glad to be proven right about Baz being a prick. Not my proudest moment. I should've considered what we were doing. If I had stopped to think, you and I could've talked it through rationally."

"You mean you don't _have_ to be petty and smug?" I tease.

"Not if there are real consequences," he replies seriously. "I mean, everyone has at least one fight like this during the slog. Remember ours?" he asks.

Of course I do. It was over the summer, after our fourth year at school. It had been a year since Micah had left, and I was going to join him in Florida in July. (Word to the wise: never go to Florida in July). We were going to stay in Florida with his family for a week, and then head to Chicago together to do research.

In April, I knew I was going to see Micah in a couple of months, so I decided to spend Easter break with Simon, traveling. I told Micah not to come to England, because it seemed like a waste of money. Simon and I went to Ireland, drank a lot of beer, listened to a lot of music. I thought everything was good.

But Micah was sure I was breaking up with him without admitting that I was breaking up with him. Why else would I tell him not to come, and then spend my holiday with another boy? He was angry and hurt. I had betrayed him (or so he thought) and didn't even had the courage to tell him.

So he started to kind of date this girl from his school. She was the exact opposite of me. Hated geometry, never used a whiteboard. You know the type. He'd even introduced me to her the last time I'd visited, and I'd thought nothing of it.

So then he calls me, and says that this girl is going on a road trip next weekend and he's going to join her. And, well, he's probably gonna, you know. Get together with her. He says he's calling to let me know first, so we'd be officially broken up before he did anything.

I was destroyed. To use one of his favorite baseball metaphors, the whole thing came out of left field. I hadn't expected it at all. I couldn't believe he'd introduced me to her. I hated her. I hated her and I hated him.

I couldn't believe he was breaking up with me over the phone. I couldn't believe he was breaking up with me, full stop. And telling me about the next girl he plans to fuck. And basically asking for my permission to fuck her.

He was taken aback by my reaction. He had convinced himself I'd left him long ago for Simon. He thought I'd be relieved that he was letting me off the hook. We got off the phone, a total mess.

He called again a few days later to say he didn't go on the road trip. With the unspoken corollary that he wasn't sleeping with this girl. I asked him to come to the UK, to stay with me, to work things out. So, he came.

I'd done the shopping in advance, filling the kitchen with foods I know he likes (he's very particular about food). We were going to be alone at the house. Premal was starting at uni the following year, and my whole family had packed themselves off on a trip to research his options.

When Micah arrived, it was a disaster. It was awkward, and painful. We couldn't talk, we couldn't sleep, we couldn't eat. He left two days later, with nothing resolved.

I cooked like a fiend after he left. There was so much food left. Expensive, extravagant food, all untouched, because he and I had barely eaten a thing.

So he left and I made a huge lasagna, filled with truffles, ground veal, every lavish ingredient I'd gotten in anticipation of his visit. When my family got back from their trip the next day, we ate the lasagna. The whole thing. It was delicious. Not one bite was left over. I felt a kind of peace.

Then, Micah called again the following day. Crying, saying he loves me, he can't stand to lose me. Saying I should come in the summer just like we'd planned.

But I explained that I couldn't, because I'd already eaten the lasagna.

He was (understandably) confused by this. I tried to explain about exorcism by pasta. We fell asleep on the phone.

He called again then the day, saying he refuses to lose me to an entree. Losing me to Simon would be one thing, he said. But losing me to lasagna was unacceptable.

We ended up both laughing and talking for a while. I went for the summer, and it was great. Of course we've fought again since then, but it was never as terrible as that first time.

 **Micah**

I've already turned the car around by the time we get to the lasagna episode. I try to imagine how I would have felt if Simon had snatched Penny away from me back then, if he had prevented us from seeing each other and working things out. It would have been terrible. I would have been furious.

I can't do that to them, no matter what I think of their thick-headed, snobbish bullshit. Everyone deserves a chance to get past the slog. Even those two.

Penny tells me that when they were riding, Baz had interrupted her before she'd gotten to that part of my theory, the part where you pivot mid-slog and swing back to a state of snog. I react in mock horror.

"Why Penny, that's how this all came to happen. You must never leave a theory half-stated. You know that. Seriously. It's good we turned around, this whole episode is so obviously your fault."

And we're laughing again despite the intensity of the situation. I have four more hours to drive, but that's ok. I feel lucky to have made it this far with Penny.

It's a warm sensation that makes me generous, makes me want to help everyone find this kind of love for themselves. Even The Walking Catastrophe and his trusty sidekick The Vegan Vampire.


	10. Turning around

**Baz**

I wake up with a gasp. My heart is pounding, terror is flooding through me, and Simon's name burns on my lips. I lay shaking for a moment until I realize with relief that I'm just having a nightmare. A terrible nightmare. I reach out for him. But my hands find nothing but a leather-bound book, and the cold wood of the floor.

No. Let this be a dream. Please, please, let this be a dream. Let me open my eyes to see his sleeping face, to feel his reassuring arms as he comforts me and tells me everything is ok, it was just a dream.

I open my eyes, and shut them immediately. I can no longer distinguish my nightmares from reality. There's a hole burning through me, like my soul is missing. As I force myself to rise out of sleep, I realize that it is. Missing. Simon is gone, and my soul has gone with him. Like he willed my soul into existence by the sheer force of his stubborn belief in it. Which he might well have done.

I stay curled in a ball on the floor, crying. I am empty, scraped raw. Clutching that fucking little journal full of Simon, the last part of him I have left. Dear Merlin, don't let this really be happening. And it is my fault. I did this. I... did I actually tell him I didn't love him? It doesn't seem real. What an absurd thing to say. I am nothing without my love for him, without his love. Surely he couldn't have believed me.

But I know that I believed it myself, as I said it. And I have no doubt that Simon believed me. Believed me and crumpled. It's unbearable to remember. I try to start a fire, but the house resists me. Fucking warded house. Why couldn't it protect me from destroying the person I love?

I hazily remember thinking that he was an embarrassment, a liability, a handsome thick-headed boy I could fuck but nothing more. I can remember the thoughts but I cannot for the death of me recreate what made me think them, let alone believe them. How could I have believed any of that about Simon?

Simon. Blustery and stubborn, bright and sharp, sweet and soft. Brave, charming, powerful Simon.

No longer mine.

Simon, who sang to me the first time I fell sick.

Simon, who always knew I was alive.

Simon, who believed in my soul.

Simon, who trusted me.

Trusted me when I promised him that loving me wouldn't hurt him. And then I do this. I tell Simon that Malcolm wasn't making me choose, that I was choosing of my own accord. That I was un-choosing of my own accord. Un-choosing him, unraveling my promises, until the cloth of our life together lay in a tangled, irreparable heap.

I remember the sound of his tears that night. With a sudden and terrible clarity, I realize that he knew I could hear him. He knew that I heard him and let him suffer alone. I am breaking. I broke him. I'm finding it hard to breathe.

I am wondering how to set this bloody warded house on fire, when I hear a knock at the door.

 **Penny**

I knock on the unlocked front door out of habit, not because I actually have to alert Baz to my presence. I know Baz must've heard the car at least half an hour ago. He surely heard me open the and close the car door and walk up the front path.

I call out his name as I walk inside, and hear a sound in the sitting room. I give him a moment. When I walk into the room, I'm greeted by a sight I never thought I'd see. Baz is disheveled. It looks like he passed out midday. On the floor. I wonder if he's been drinking. His skin is drawn, his eyes are red and wild. He looks terrible.

It is _so_ unfair that I'll never get to tease him about this.

He looks up, and then freezes as he stares at me. He seems frightened of me. It's rather gratifying.

It's a relief at first to find him like this. Micah and I talked about what we would do if we'd misinterpreted the situation. If we arrived to find Baz happy as lark, calmly sipping tea and reading the Guardian on his laptop. We didn't come up with anything good, so I'm glad we can cross that scenario off our list.

But then he startles when I say his name again, and actually steps backwards when I start to walk towards him. That's a bit odd, and I start to feel worried about him. I hold out my hand and whisper his name like he's a wounded animal, telling him not to be afraid, it's just me. Just Penny. He whimpers and starts shaking violently as he backs away from me.

Abject terror was a scenario I was _not_ prepared for.

 **Baz**

Penny can project herself across space. I already knew she could possess animals. Now she appears in her own form, silent as a ghost, with no warning. I heard no car, no footsteps, no doors. This thing I see before me must be a ghost, a spirit of some kind.

Then the ghost who looks like Penny says my name.

I'm terrified. What manner of magic is this, to appear in my waking moments as clear as if she were corporeally present? Has she learned to cast 'In form as palpable?' Would she resort to such dark magic?

I don't know what she wants with me. I know I deserve to be punished for what I've done, but my traitorous body starts backing away from her shade.

Then, I feel a shred of hope.

I must dreaming after all. All this time I thought I was awake and thinking, I'd just fallen into a deeper state of dreaming. I have to wake up. I have to find Simon and prove to myself none of this really happened. I have to wake up.

 **Penny**

He's whispering something. I strain to hear what it is. It sounds like he's saying "Wake up. Please. Please. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up." It is a sound that breaks my heart, and my anger shatters with it.

"Baz," I say softly. "It's me. It's Penny. You're already awake. You're ok. Let's sit you down, ok? Let's get you some tea, yeah?"

He sinks onto the floor and begins sobbing.

 **Baz**

I don't know how or why Penny's here, but she's not a dream. My terror explodes as I realize what this means. Simon must be dead. I killed him. I killed Simon.

 **Penny**

He's scaring me. He's pulling at his hair and rocking back and forth and saying "no no no no no no no no..." Maybe I should get Micah.

We'd decided it made more sense for him to stay with Simon, who's still asleep in the back of the car, while I come in and talk to Baz and help him figure out how to fix this mess he's made.

But Baz is a broken shell. He's far worse off than Simon. I don't want to leave him for long enough to get Micah. I wrack my brains for a spell that will help, but I know spells are dangerous when someone is so fragile. I know I'm smart and skilled, but I'm not a healer or an artist. I can't risk magic.

So I move to where he's fallen and I put my arms around him and I brush his hair from his eyes and I whisper to him that it's ok, it's ok, calm down, it's ok. I sing him a song my mother used to sing when I was scared. I haven't thought about it in years. I hold him and murmur to him and sing until his shaking calms a bit, and I get him to move to the couch.

 **Baz**

I am empty. I fall into a strange trance, where my mother seems to hold me and soothes me and sings the lullaby she know I love best. I don't deserve this comfort. I shake myself out of my trance.

I see Penny in front of me, kneeling on the floor facing me, looking at me anxiously. I need to know what I did. I need to know what happened. How he died.

"Just tell me," I say harshly. "Just fucking tell me."

She looks surprised and almost hurt, which confuses me more. She starts to back away from me but then reconsiders and puts her hands around mine. "Ok," she says, taking a deep breath. "I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. So I'm not sure what to say."

Every moment is agony. She needs to fucking tell me how I killed Simon, and then she needs to leave me so I can do the same to myself.

 **Penny**

His head is kind of bent away like he's expecting me to hit him. "Baz," I say. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry Micah and I left and took Simon before the two of you could talk. I was really angry with you, you know. I just want to protect Simon from being hurt. But I shouldn't have left with him. He doesn't need to be rescued from you, he needs to be with you. You need him. You guys need to work this out. I'll help however I can."

 **Baz**

It's like she's speaking a different language. My hold on reality is so tenuous. I think she says she's sorry, but that's impossible. Then I realize she said Simon's name, she's talking about him in the present tense. I grab her arms.

"Simon's alive? He's ok? He's alive?"

She looks at me strangely and laughs. "Of course he's alive, you twit. You think I killed him at some point over the past 10 hours?" Then she looks at me a little longer and says, "Oh. I see. For fuck's sake, Baz, you're not _that_ powerful. You hurt Simon's feelings. Badly. But you didn't kill the guy. Crowley, you're full of yourself even when you're falling apart."

"I swear," she says. "The pair of you are never going to make it past twenty at this rate, but there's no more war to account for it. Just you two gits. You both manage to be fine through wars and kidnapping and murder, but two months of peace and you fucking fall apart. Life doesn't have to be such a melodrama, you know?"

"Here's what's going to happen," she continues crisply, and I'm relieved that she's here, taking charge of me. "I'll put on the kettle while you go wash up. You look a fright. Then we'll sit down and drink our tea like rational people and figure this all out. You've got to get your shit together, Baz. You've got a big mess to fix."

Showering and changing works like a spell. I feel attached to reality again. And ashamed of myself. For what I've said, what I've done to Simon. And for the inexcusable mess I was earlier with Penny. I avoid the mirror as I brush my teeth before heading downstairs. I can't stand to look myself in the eye.

When I get downstairs, Penny looks relieved to see me. Everything seems upside down. I gratefully accept a cup from her.

"If you would, can you please repeat whatever you were saying earlier? I wasn't in the most… coherent… state of mind." I say.

"Right," says Penny. "I was apologizing. For taking Simon away before you had a chance to talk, to work things out. I'm sorry for doing that, Baz. But we brought him back. He's in the car, outside, with Micah. Perfectly alive and well. When you're both ready, Micah and I will disappear upstairs and the two of you will talk this all through until you're both ok again."

I stare at her in amazement. "Ok again? You think I can fix this? You think I can undo it, un-hurt Simon, get him back?"

"No," she says, direct as always. "You can't un-hurt Simon or un-say things you said. But you can say other things, new things, or repeat old things, the good ones. You can repair this. Look, Baz, you acted like an arse, but you didn't do anything unforgivable. You were mean. You'll apologize. It'll be ok."

I think about this. I must look skeptical because she sighs and says,

"Basilton. Life isn't one long war. It's peacetime now. You can make mistakes and be wrong and then apologize and move on. You can't both fall off a cliff every time you and Simon have a row."

I slump in relief. I can still fix this. But then a thought hits me.

"What makes you think Simon will forgive me? When I've just added myself to the top of the list of people who have hurt him?" To my surprise, Penny laughs.

"Added yourself? You've always been on that list, you idiot. Do you not remember trying to feed him to the Chimera? Almost stealing his voice? Cursing him every chance you got? Trust me, Baz, if he can forgive you for all that, he can forgive you for working into a strop and saying things you didn't mean."

"But. I did mean them. In the moment when I said it, I meant it." I confess quietly, looking down at the table.

She waits until I look back up at her before she speaks. "Well," she says. "You don't look like a person who's just lost someone he doesn't love. You look like someone whose soul has been ripped out. Are you trying to tell me you really _don't_ love Simon?"

I shake my head quickly.. "No, I do love him. More than anything. He's my whole world," I say, then pause as I think. "Well, actually he's not my whole world, which is part of the problem. He, well, we don't exactly fit into each other's lives."

"Tell me about it," she groans. "Simon can't take you anywhere. You're a total liability. He can't bring you round to the pub, can't invite you when he plays cards with friends, can't bring you to parties…"

I stare at her. "What," she says, rolling her eyes. "You never realized it cuts both ways? Why wouldn't _he_ be worried that you'll embarrass _him_? I know _you're_ anxious about bringing him to your precious club." I blink. I've never told her that.

"You didn't need to tell me for me to know," she says, reading my mind. I'm starting to understand why Simon finds it so irritating when I do that. "It's obvious. But if you took a second to think, you'd realize he's just as anxious about bringing an elitist ass like you into his world."

I smile at her and glare at her at the same time, which must look as stupid as it feels because she laughs. Penny has a nice laugh.

"Anyway," she continues. "The point is. The two of you need to go back to civilization so you can each have a life apart from the other. You don't need to spend every bloody minute together. You know that, right? So he doesn't have to be bored to tears at your fussy club and you don't have to be shocked by the lack of fashion at his unrefined card games, and the two of you can live happily ever after as distinct, different people. Which you are."

I don't say anything. My mind is still reeling. I can't make any sense of the past what, 12 hours? I have no idea what time it is. I don't even know if it's day or night.

"Ok," she sighs. "apparently this is going to take a while. Let's get something to eat and go sit down somewhere and we'll get started."

Started? We haven't even started whatever it is we're doing? I suddenly feel very tired. How did Simon ever survive a friendship with Penny this long? She unrelenting. Exhausting. Amazing. Redemptive.

 **Simon**

When I wake up, the sky is already dark.

I don't know how long I slept, or how long the car's been stopped. I guess we're at Penny's. I don't have the strength to face a tribe of Bunces, so I keep my eyes closed and decide that I don't have to move until someone makes me.

There was this book I saw once at Agatha's. I think her mum was reading it. It was called The Wisdom of No... something. I don't remember what the something was, but that's ok, because the point (as far as I could tell from the blurb on the back, which was as far as I got) was that wisdom lay in Nothing. That you could avoid suffering by being present to everything but being attached to nothing. By having no wants, no fears, no hopes. Seemed like a shit way to live. But right now, it's appealing. To let go of all my wants and fears and hopes and just let my thoughts swirl around me.

Whenever I let my thoughts wander, they head straight to Baz. But I let them go where they want now, without trying to control them. I find I can think about him again without it being painful.

I think about his grey eyes, how they crinkle and give him away when he's trying not to smile. It's ok to think about that. It's nice, even. The smooth feeling of his thumb on the back of my hand, moving in a gesture that's become as familiar as breathing. The way his skin burns with cold under my hands, and slowly warms up from my touch.

I smile at the memory of how sweetly nervous he was when he showed me everything he'd built for me at the party, and how transformed he was by his enthusiasm as he showed me every corner and detail. My heart warms at the memory of him playing his violin under the sky of his own making. Then we danced, and he asked me...

I finally come up against the memory that catches me short and takes my breath away in a spasm of pain so intense that I think for a moment there must be something physically punching a hole through my chest. He played his violin and danced with me barefoot in the grass and told me he wanted to be my family, not just my boyfriend. That he wanted to marry me. So what does that mean, now? Are we divorced? The idea twists into a bitter smile on my face.

Was none of that real, then? I let my thoughts brush along another precipice. He told me I could be loved, loved completely and forever, because he loved me that way. Completely. Forever. I can't stop a whimper from escaping my lips. Time for not thinking again.

Thoughts can be persistent, though. Mine take me back to every detail of that little world he'd built that night, just for me. He knew all the places I liked to go, the secret places I would hide. The journal I'd wanted. That couldn't have all be fake. I couldn't have imagined all that. Why would he pretend in such detail?

I force myself to relive the conversation from this morning. (Was it only this morning?) It had ripped the world out from beneath me, and then we had left so quickly, I'd never processed what he said.

He said it wasn't Malcolm. He said he doesn't love me.

He didn't say how long he hadn't loved me. He didn't say he'd _never_ loved me.

He hadn't lied to me any of the times he told me he did love me. Because when he stopped loving me, he told me. It's a weird kind of comfort but I cling to it. He _had_ loved me. First he had hated me, of course. Then he loved me. Now something else is happening. I can live with that. It hurts. It sucks. I don't want it to be this way. But it won't destroy me.

I sit up, and stretch, and squint out the window. Where are we? This doesn't look like Penny's house. It looks like my... our... Daphne's house. But that can't be. We spent the better part of the day driving away from there.

I startle when Micah speaks to me. I hadn't realized he was even in the car. Close observation is not one of my strengths. Just ask Baz.

 **Micah**

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," I call over my shoulder as I hear Simon sitting up and stretching behind me. I surreptitiously study him in the rearview mirror. He looks ok. Less destroyed than earlier. That's encouraging. I'm pretty sure Penny would skin me alive if Simon deteriorated on my watch.

From her texts, it sounds like she has her hands full in there with Baz. So it falls to me to explain to Simon why we're back in France. When I finish explaining, I let Simon know that at some point he's going to go back in the house, when Penny's done with Baz. He can eat if he wants while we're waiting, I tell him. I throw the bag with his sandwich into the back.

Simon doesn't react. He just sits there, staring out the window, not saying a thing. That's ok. I brought plenty of stuff to read.

 **Simon**

I think Micah might be apologizing to me, for egging Penny on and whisking me away instead of letting me and Baz have it out. It's hard to tell, though. If he's apologizing, I mean.

The way he puts it is that he's sorry for pushing things in that direction, but he'd thought it was a way to get out of there with Penny. If he'd known she was going to bring me along, he would've thought twice about it. And I thought _Baz_ was shit at apologies. Turns out Micah's got that competition sewn up.

It doesn't matter. We're back in France. I'm going to see Baz again. Micah told me that of course Baz loves me, I'd have to be daft to doubt it. (He's started talking like Penny sometimes. I suppose that's why he thinks he's been on the wrong side of the Atlantic for too long.)

Baz. I'm going to see Baz again after all. The thought fills me with a mixture of joy and dread. I desperately want to see him, to hear him say he loves me, that this has all been a big misunderstanding and everything will be ok now. But what if that's not what he says at all? What if I walk in there and he's as cold as before? What if he pretends I never left?

Or worse, what if I go in there and he tells me to leave? Tells me again that he doesn't love me and I don't belong here. I reckon that's why Penny went in without me, though. To make sure that's not going to happen. So if she's texted Micah to say I should go in, she must be sure it's ok. But even Penny gets things wrong sometimes.

 **Micah**

I catch the look on Simon's face in the rearview mirror. He looks angry, stubborn - like smoke is going to come pouring out of his ears any second. Which isn't far from what used to happen, but Penny's assured me there's no danger of that anymore.

"Look, buddy," I say. I know he hates it when I call him buddy. "You don't have to go in there, you know. You don't have to ever see that asshole again. I wouldn't, if I were you. Of course, I would never have fallen in love with that jackass to begin with, so my theoretical behavior is not that relevant."

"Regardless. You're the one that matters to Penny, so you're the one that matters to me. Say the word, and we'll drive away. No one will be happier than I am to never see this place again, I assure you."

"But, just so you know," I add. "Penny says Baz is a wreck. That he's so filled with terror and remorse that he's neglected to brush his hair back into a fucking pompadour. That when she got there, he was curled on the floor in a crumpled heap, face puffy with crying and clutching at some little book like a lunatic."

I wish I'd gotten to see that, actually. But alas, Penny refused to text me a picture and now she's made him clean himself up. I don't say this to Simon, though.

"My point is," I say instead. "if what you're worried about is whether or not he's sorry, trust me. He's sorry. He's so miserable that Penny didn't even have the heart to tell him off."

I'm satisfied with the new look on his face. Never let it be said that I never did anything nice for Simon Snow.

 **Baz**

"All right, then, Baz," she says. "This is how it's going to work. You're going to tell me what's going on. All of it. The endgame is for you to tell all this stuff to Simon. But you're going to tell me first so you can work out anything stupid before you make the mistake of saying it to him."

I stare at her. I know that, not an hour ago, I was ready to accept her spectral wrath as just punishment. But somehow this is worse.

"Come off it, Baz," she says and then relents. She says, more softly, "look, just tell me what's been going through that superior head of yours so I can help straighten it out, yeah? Then I promise to never again want to know what you're thinking. Unless you screw up again," she adds, a bit less comfortingly.

How have I never noticed that she's even more stubborn than Simon is? So I tell her. I tell her about him disappearing. I tell her about his face when we talked about the Mage and his experiments. She stares at me silently. How does she know I haven't gotten to the point yet? I don't know which is scarier, Penny the apparition or Penny the real person.

I think I'm literally squirming in my seat. This is embarrassing. So I suck it up and tell her about Malcolm. About the accounts. About how I felt suffocated knowing that I no longer had a life that was separate from Simon. How Simon's presence started to feel oppressive. And then I stop talking. I'm not saying anything else.

Penny waits for a couple of seconds and says, "that's it?" I nod. And she says, "Baz. My dear, over-educated dunce of a friend. You've got your own feelings exactly arse about face."

I glare at her. "And you think that you know what I'm feeling better than I do?"

"Yup," she says. "Haven't you ever read Schachter and Singers's seminal 1962 paper on the limits of human meta-cognition? They injected people with –"

I cut her off. I can't bear a science lesson right now. "No, Bunce, I haven't. I don't quite feel up to doing the primary research at the moment. Perhaps you would be so kind as to summarize the relevant findings for me?"

She rolls her eyes. "Fine. For now. But you really ought to read the original papers. They're fascinating. The physics-for-poets version is this: in states of heightened arousal or stress, our bodies produce feelings- I mean literal, visceral, physiological feelings. Emotions are just our brains trying to tell a story that makes sense of those internal physical states. Fear, happiness, whatever- they're interpretations of bodily experience, but they're so immediate, we think they're incontrovertible."

She stops talking. I guess this is her revenge for my hurting Simon's feelings. As vengeance goes, it could be worse.

"And this is relevant because…" I prompt.

She stares at me like I'm a perfect idiot, which we already knew. "Ok, since you're not doing so well, I'll do you the favor of connecting the dots for you. But seriously, Baz, you're being thick."

"You had a physiological reaction to finding out that your parents have financially adopted Simon. Hard to breathe, walls closing in, that kind of thing. Standard vaso-vagal response to stress. You jumped to the conclusion that Simon makes you feel suffocated, without realizing that was just an interpretation. And the wrong one. You got it backwards."

 **Penny**

First I tried kindness. Then I tried tough love. Then I tried science. Nothing seems to be getting through.

"What the bloody hell is a vaso-vagal response?" he asks.

For the love of Crowley. How did this dimwit graduate first in our class? It's a travesty. I decide to take a new tack.

"Ok, let's do a thought experiment. Close your eyes," I demand. I wait until he reluctantly complies.

"Ok, now imagine two afternoons. On one, you're going with your father to the club for tea. On the other, you're hanging around our flat doing nothing at all with Simon. Which one makes you feel suffocated?"

 **Baz**

My eyes open. Literally and metaphorically. I don't feel trapped outside my old life because of Simon. I feel trapped because my parents are trying to drag me back into it by coopting him. How could I not have seen that?

 **Penny**

I can see that he finally gets it. Thank magic. I thought we were going to be up all night.

"I recommend trying 'Be careful what you wish for' the next time you find yourself thinking you hate your current life," I advise. "Doesn't always work, but it's usually worth a shot."

"Why are you helping me?" he asks (more suspiciously than necessary, in my opinion).

"You? Who said anything about helping you? I'm here to help Simon. He loves you, Baz. You make him happy."

I think better of this half-truth. I really do want to help Baz, and I should get over myself and let him know. Baz seems ok now, but he was a right mess when I first got here, and he probably needs all the propping up he can get.

"And," I add, trying kindness again. "I do want to help you, too, Baz. Despite a lifetime of reasons not to trust you, I do. I even like you. I'm glad Simon's with you. And I'm glad it means you're my friend, too."

He looks startled at the sudden shift in my tone. I think he smiles, but I can't really be sure because it fades so quickly into a grimace.

"Penny," he whispers. "How do I do this? Doesn't he hate me now?"

"No, Baz, he doesn't," I say firmly. I'm not conceding an inch to the melancholy that threatens to overwhelm him again. "And as for how to do this, I expect the two of you will figure it out. It's obvious to anyone who spends five minutes with the pair of you that you're in love. You ought to be able to convince each other."

It's now or never, I think to myself. Baz will sink back into that lost place soon, and I need to get Simon in here while he still coherent. I text Micah, and head upstairs to wait.

 **Simon**

Micah's phone beeps. "That's my cue, boss," he says after glancing down at it. "Give me a minute to get upstairs and then go on in." He looks like he's thinking of saying something else. Probably something flip. But then he shakes his head slightly and just says "Good luck, Simon. And. Give him a chance."

I watch him go inside. I wait in the car, telling myself that Baz can't make me feel worse than he already has. And although I know it's probably far from true, the thought gives me enough courage to get out of the car.

I walk up to the door, remembering the last time I made this walk alone in the dark. What if he ignores me again?

I'm not left wondering for long. The door opens just as I reach it. Baz is standing there, and my mind empties of everything except him. His eyes are searching my face. His lips form an unreadable line. His shoulders are tense.

His eyebrows rise slightly when my eyes meet his, and then he looks away.

 **Baz**

I can't take the delay, I can't just sit here and wait until he decides to come in and find me. I need to see him, to know for myself. To know that he's ok. And to know that Penny right. That he doesn't hate me. That he still wants me, that he still wants me to want him.

But when I open the door, I freeze in place. He's standing on the doorstep with his hair falling in a familiar mess of curls. It's all I can do not to reach out and brush them back from his forehead. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks pale. He looks angry, and scared. Defiant. My heartbeat stumbles. I search his face for something else, some spark in his eyes that tells me he's mine. But I don't find anything there but suspicion.

The expression on his face is thrown into sharp relief by love's sudden absence. I'd forgotten what he looks like when he's closed off like this. It's strange to remember that this is how he looked all those years we lived together. Guarded, prepared. It's even stranger to think that this is what he still looks like to most people.

My face falls and my eyes fill with tears. I have to turn my face to hide them. How do I explain that I was temporarily insane, that I let my fears overcome my reason and my heart? How do I know if he even wants to hear that? If he's willing to hear anything my treacherous mouth has to say?

 **Simon**

He stands there, saying nothing, not even looking at me. My stomach clenches. Where is Penny? Why is Baz outside? Did he come to stop me from going in? Was Micah wrong? Does Baz not want me here?

I settle my shoulders and let my chin jut out. If he doesn't want me here, then I don't want to be here. I don't need to be indoors. I can stand in the cold forever. I don't need him. I don't need anyone. I don't need any of this. I don't need a car; I can grow wings. I don't even need Penny. I was alone for most of my life and I can be alone again. I turn to leave, not really sure where I'm going. And not really caring.

 **Baz**

I see his feet turn, and I know that he's going to leave. Penny was wrong. He does hate me. He should hate me. I hate myself. He should leave. He shouldn't be anywhere near me. All I am is pain. I should go inside. I should let him go. I have no right to hold him here.

 **Simon**

I take a step away. I am leaving. Baz sees me leaving, and he says nothing. He doesn't move. He doesn't want me. Just like when he heard me cry and did nothing. I am nothing to him. I've never been anything but nothing. I'm ready to be nothing.

 **Baz**

I have no right to hold him back. But I am weak, always so weak. I can't stand for him to leave again without a word. I can't let this end, again, without giving voice to the emptiness he's leaving me with.

"Simon," I say again. I don't know what I'm going to say. My voice hardly rises above a whisper and I'm ashamed at how badly it's shaking. I look back up. I can at least look at him when I apologize for not seeing him.

 **Simon**

He says my name, so quietly I'm not sure he's even said it. I hear his voice shake. I look at him more closely from the corner of my eyes and see that it's not just his voice that is shaking. I am confused, not sure what I'm seeing. I close my eyes and open myself to him. I try to feel him across the cold distance that separates us. I try to ignore my fear. His hands shake. His shoulders shake. His hair trembles across his face. I remember all the years of believing he hated me. The way he hid his love with hate, out of fear. I am flooded again with the regret I felt when I discovered how much time we had lost fighting.

Because I couldn't see what was right in front of me.

I'm not going to do that again. I open my eyes. He said Simon. He said my name. That's always been the truest declaration of love he could make. It's enough.

 **Baz**

"I-" I start, wanting to tell him I love him, tell him I'm sorry, tell him I'd give anything to have him back.

I don't make it beyond that one guilty vowel. His eyes shine again with warmth and love, for me. His mouth is on mine, gently at first, and then urgently. His hands find their way to my shoulders, and move until his fingers twine through my hair. For a moment, I'm so shocked that I just stand there, my arms hanging loosely at my sides. All I said was his name. His name alone is a spell. His name is a declaration of love. My arms lift and wrap around him. I say it again, Simon, and again. Simon. My Simon. He fills my arms, my vision, my world, and all I ever need is him.

He smiles against my mouth and softly pushes me through the door. I hadn't even realized we'd been standing outside in the freezing cold until we come back inside and I shiver. He stops kissing me for long enough to give me a worried glance and then smiles wickedly and wraps me entirely in his heat, his arms sweeping me off the floor as he brings me closer to the fire.

We end up on the floor, sitting facing one another. We're close enough to the fire that I can hear it burning. His hands are cradling my face and my hands are on his shoulders. The whole thing feels comfortingly familiar, as though we'd been here before. Like maybe we never left. The fire, our hands, our mingled breathing and the feeling of shocked joy, all resolve themselves into a strange amalgam of memory and experience.

I manage to break away, my hands pushing against his chest and my face moving back, away from his. "But Simon," I start. I don't know how to ask the questions swirling incoherently through my mind. Why doesn't he need me to explain? How can he forgive me so easily? Doesn't he want me to say I'm sorry? I want to tell him I'm sorry. I need to tell him that I'm so eternally, unchangeably sorry.

"Why?" is all I can think to say. I expect him to look confused but he doesn't. He gives me a look halfway between a smile and a sob and pauses to consider what to say.

 **Simon**

"The rest can wait until tomorrow, yeah?" I say. I'm in no state to talk, or to process whatever it is he plans to tell me. "But this couldn't wait."

"I love you," Baz whispers. "I always have, and I always will. I-"

I stop him with a kiss and say "No more words, ok Baz? Not tonight. No more words."

I don't want to think about promises and forever. I just want to have now, now. To worry about later, later.

He laughs when I tell him to stop talking, and I smile at the reversal too. "One kiss," he says with a smirk, "and you think the whole world has turned upside down."

"Two kisses," I say, remembering. And I take him by the back of his neck.

This is one of those situations where my penchant for not thinking becomes a talent rather than a liability. I don't need to think to know what drives the heart that is beating so urgently under my hand. I don't need to think to hear his breath catch as I kiss his neck, or to feel his muscles tense below me as I move above him.

It's not thought that directs my fingers, my lips, my tongue in their journey across his skin. It's not thinking that teases a groan from his lips and stretches it out, slowly, tantalizingly, until it changes in speed and register and becomes a moan and then a shout.

I don't need to think as I trace his face with my fingers. I don't need to think as I feel his fingers respond in kind. My mind empties of all thought as I feel his cool sweetness sweep across every part of me. Across the very being of me.

It's only knowing that comes without thinking that can ease the pain of the past two days and wrap me in the certainty of his love. It's the trusting without thinking that lets me fall asleep in his arms, and not fear what is yet to come.

 **Baz**

I'm determined not to sleep. I don't want to lose any of my time with Simon now that he's back. I want to relive the soft pleasure of the past few hours. And, if I'm being honest, I'm terrified that if I fall asleep, this will turn out to be a dream, and I'll wake up in a haze of guilt and pain.

But the exhaustion of the day conspires with the rhythm of Simon's breath to lull me to sleep. I keep his hand tightly in mine, so if I get lost during the night I can find my way back to him.

 **Baz**

At some point we head upstairs. I grab some food from the kitchen on the way up. I haven't eaten in... I'm not sure how long. But too long. And Simon looks like he hasn't eaten either.

It's awkward for a moment when we first walk into our room. Both of us stand there, remembering the last time we were in here together. It was a day ago, but sometimes a day can be a lifetime. Finally, Simon breaks the silence when he sees his journal on the floor near the bed. I'd completely forgotten it was there.

We sit down on the floor at the foot of the bed, and I put the food down between us. Some bread, cheese, tomatoes and olives. France is great for snacks. Simon picks up the journal and stares at it in bewilderment.

"What in the name of Merlin did you do to my journal? Did you think it needed washing?"

The book does look like it's been through the wringer. The pages are all bloated so that the book doesn't quite close anymore. The ink has run and all the corners are bent or torn.

 **Simon**

"I might have cried on it a bit," he says, looking at something on the ceiling that has suddenly become fascinating. I try to see if he's joking. The book looks like it was soaked in a tub overnight and then run under the faucet for good measure.

He looks so pained and embarrassed that I'm fairly certain he's not joking.

"Crowley, Baz. Do vampires have like super-tears or something?" I ask.

"Only when they've been super-arseholes to the people they love," he responds, looking sad. I lean towards him, as an experiment. Sure enough, his eyes close and he falls towards me. I smile as our lips meet. It's hard to reach him, though, across all the food.

The smell of food leaves me loudly, embarrassingly hungry. Now it's Baz's turn to smile, and he leans back. We tuck in, and I'm amazed to see Baz each nearly as much as I do. When we finally finish every crumb of baguette and morsel of cheese, I move the plates over and slide closer to him. He rests his head on my shoulder, and I hold his hand in mine.

 **Baz**

It's a relief to eat, and to eat together. As Simon moves to sit closer to me, I feel my eyes tearing up and I bite my lip to stop myself from crying. I am not going to cry. I am not going to create another scene where Simon's been hurt but I'm the one crying. Especially when I'm the one who hurt him.

I lean my head on him so he can't see my eyes. But it's no use. The tears slide down my face of their own accord, and I'm powerless to stop them.

 **Simon**

I feel his tears collect in the hollow of my collarbone. I shift so I'm holding him now, and let him cry. He whispers my name. I stroke his hair and tell him I love him. He whispers that he's sorry, his breath light and cold against my skin.

I want to tell him not to be sorry. It's like Penny said, if we spend all our time being sorry, when we will have time to be friends? But I know I would want to be able to say I was sorry if the situation were reversed, so I let him talk.

 **Baz**

It's appalling for me to cry. The last time he cried, I listened and stayed away and he knew. The memory makes cry harder at the same time as I try to stop crying. The result is an undignified hiccuping cough so I give up and let him hold me. I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him that it will never happen again. I start to say "I promise," and he shushes me.

"No more promises," he says, and I burn with shame. I've broken so many promises that the word on my lips has come to mean betrayal. I've rightfully lost the trust of the only person that matters.

Now my crying becomes shameful, painful. I have to pull away from Simon, to hide as best I can inside the shell of myself. My head falls into my hands as I turn my back to him and curl myself around my knees. I feel Simon's hand on my shoulder. I want to disappear, to die of this shame so I don't have to carry it any more.

"Hey," he says, his hand in my back. "Hey, Baz, love, what? What did I say wrong? What's going on?" I can't stop shaking, sobbing. "Baz- please, please turn around. Come on, what? Do you. What. Do you. Should I. Is this."

I've reduced him to stuttering again. I am nothing but pain to him. But now his voice changes, and he's saying "...go? I can go. Do you need me to go? Baz? Should I not have come back? Do you want me to go?" and I force myself to get a grip on things before I make everything worse than I've already made it.

 **Simon**

I'm kind of freaked out. I don't think he really wants me to go, but I don't know what just happened. Why is hiding from me, avoiding me again? It hurts more than I want it to. I start to stand up, and he turns back to me. He grabs my arm a little desperately and says,

"No, please, Simon, please, don't go. Don't leave me. I'll stop crying. I know I'm being a git. I know I have no right to cry. I'll stop. Just, wait. Just give me a second, ok? Just wait."

He thinks I'm angry that he's crying. Which is mental. All I want is for him to let me hold him while he cries. He's breaking my heart, but not like when he told me he doesn't love me. It breaks me to see him like this, and to know that he's feeling this way because he made me feel this way yesterday. It's a cycle with no exit. The only way to make this stop is for me to stop it.

"Baz," I say. "Let's not do this, ok? Let's not hurt anymore. Ourselves or each other. Ok? Let's just. Not. Yeah? Just, not do this."

He nods his head but his eyes shine with pain and I can't take it. I see him set his face in a calm mask and nod. But that's not what I want either.

So I say to him, "Let's make a new truce, then, yeah? To just say what's going on? I love you. I'm not angry with you. I'm not upset with you for crying. I just want to be able to help."

His eyes fill with tears and he sits there mutely. I feel my panic building. "Baz, just tell me. What's going on? I thought it was better? I thought I came back and you wanted me back and now it can be better? So what's happening now?"

 **Baz**

I'm being a pathetic, whimpering, useless arse. I gain control over my face but he can see through that. He suggests a truce. He wants me to talk. And he's right, of course. This is not helping anything.

So I try to explain. It takes me a really long time to figure out what to say. I don't want to apologize again. I don't want to just keep repeating those empty words: I'm sorry. I promise.

"It's just," I choke out. "When you said I shouldn't make promises. I know you're right, I have no right to make promises. And I hate myself for that. I hate it. I hate what I did. I wish I could undo it. I know you're right not to trust me. I just wish it wasn't like that. I wish you could trust me. Or that you would. Or…" I stop talking because I feel the tears building up again and I will not cry.

His face registers surprise, then confusion and sadness, before settling on love.

"Hey, Baz," he whispers, and pulls me to him. "That's not what I meant at all, was it? I didn't mean that I don't trust you when you make a promise. I do. What I mean is that you don't have to promise. That we're beyond promises. We don't need them anymore. We are our own promises. We are each a promise to the other. That's what I meant. I don't mean that I don't trust you, you idiot. I mean the opposite. We are ourselves and that's all the promises we need."

I'm astonished, and abashed. He smiles softly and says, "Here, let me explain." And he kisses me, slowly and sweetly, and says, "ok, so. That was a promise. Now, it's your turn."

And I smile too and play this silly game with my silly boyfriend. My silly, profound, unreasonably handsome mystery of a boyfriend.

 **Simon**

It's strange that what used to pass for normal has become astonishing again. I get to fall asleep beside Baz. I wake up at some point, to find my hands in his. I kiss the tip of his nose lightly and laugh when his lips curve but his eyes stay closed.

He moves his hands from around mine to wrap his arms around me, and pulls me close to him. He hides his head in the quiet space between my shoulder and my neck, and whispers my name. I fall back asleep to the sound of him whispering my name like a mantra, like a prayer. Like a promise.


	11. Moving on

**Baz**

I wake up at dawn. I feel weird. Empty, full. Tired, jumpy. Hungry. Or rather, thirsty. Simon's still here, hands in mine, sleeping. If this is a dream, I'm not ready to wake up.

But I haven't hunted since Penny and Micah arrived. And then I lied about it, to Simon. To explain why I left him alone. Two days ago. How could it only be two days? But it was.

Simon senses that I'm awake and pulls closer to me. "Sleep more, mmm?" he mumbles.

"I need to hunt," I admit sheepishly. "It's been a week or so." Simon opens his eyes but doesn't call me out.

"I'm coming with you," is all he says.

"Seriously, Simon. There's no need. There are more red deer than humans around here, it won't take me long." Then I see the look on his face. I can't leave him to go hunt after so recently using it as an excuse to leave him, full stop. I don't want to be apart right now either. So I give in.

"Ok," I concede. "But you can't watch."

He grins and jumps into a pair of jeans, not bothering with pants. I'm more meticulous. I can't help it. It takes me a few minutes longer but then I'm ready. And we're out in the night air, hand in hand, and I'm so light I'm practically floating. He moves behind me, and wraps his arms around me, and sings "Au clair de la lune..."

"That's not a hunting song," I say and roll my eyes.

He shrugs (of course). "It's the only French I know."

"Really? What about beurre? Chocolat? Des oeufs?" I tease.

"True enough," he concedes with a laugh. "I know food, too. Do the deer here speak English? Would doe a deer work?" A moment later, a buck steps out onto the path in front of us. "Guess that's a yes, then," he says with a grin.

"Penny's right. You _can_ cast, if you want to." I observe. "All right, Snow, this is the part where you walk away decorously so I can be bloodthirsty like a gentleman."

He tightens his arms around me, leans into my ear, and breathes "Let me watch, Baz. Fuck decorum. I want to watch." The words form small puffs of condensation before settling on my neck and ear, and I shiver. Not from the cold. "You owe me," he adds mischievously.

I shrug. Snow-speak for I give up. I do owe him.

With Simon's arms around me, I approach the deer. I look into its eyes and it lowers its head, offering the gift of itself in response to the vampire's thrall. It's creepy, but so is the whole thing, so I try not to dwell on it too much.

I lean forward and rest my lips on the deer's neck. I let my fangs extend through its skin and into the pulse just below. The blood flows cleanly, warm and sweet, tasting of grass and moonlight. It coats my mouth and fills me with warmth and life. I'm lost in the moments when I feed, totally absorbed in the transubstantiation of this unholy communion.

 **Simon**

I watch Baz lean over its neck. I never thought I'd be jealous of a deer. But I am. I'm transfixed by the look on Baz's face: equal parts focus, gratitude, and pleasure. I can see in the deer's eyes the moment Baz's fangs enter. It looks alert, and then at peace.

I'm overwhelmed by the desire to take the deer's place, to be the one making Baz feel whatever it is that's put that transcendent look on his face. I want to surrender myself to him completely. I want to fill him. I want it to be my blood giving him life, my life that he's grateful for, my body he's focused on.

The desire to feel his fangs, to look in his eyes as he penetrates my skin, to feel his mouth sweetly fill with my blood- I've never felt anything quite like it before. It's all I can do not to rip the deer from his hands.

But I wait. Breathlessly. Holding him close. Growing more desperate with every second that passes, with every pulse of Baz's throat as he drinks and drinks and drinks. I don't think I'll be able to hold myself back for another moment when he finally lets the deer fall. His eyes are still closed in silent communion and I turn him towards me and finally claim my rightful place under his lips.

 **Baz**

As I finish, I feel Simon behind me. He leans closer to me as I let the deer fall, and begins kissing me ravenously. He should be shrinking back in revulsion. But he's not. He's turned on, and so am I.

I rotate in his arms and let his mouth devour me. We fall together, grasping and rolling. We come to rest under the meager refuge of a tree that's fallen against a rock. I cast "We'll share the shelter," and the sanctuary grows around us until we are protected from the wind and blocked from the view of animals and houseguests alike.

Our breath is coming fast. It's all thrillingly familiar, until suddenly it isn't.

"Bite me. Baz," Simon moans into my ear. "I want to feel your fangs."

I look up in shock. "Are you-" I start to ask. I haven't quite figured out if the next word is "sure" or "insane," but he doesn't let me finish anyway.

"Please," he breathes, almost pleading.

I only hesitate a moment before complying. My desire is so intense, refusing his request would require moving completely away from him. Surely I can't do that, I tell myself. And I owe him, as he pointed out.

And. I want this as much as he does. All those years of fearing I would bite him. Because I so desperately want to. There's surely no better time than after having drained a buck.

I don't want to bite him anywhere near a major artery. So I trail my teeth lightly down his throat and push his arms up over his head and lock my mouth around the lip of his chest where the muscle folds back to form the soft underside beneath the hollow of his shoulder.

I let my fangs go.

I let his arms go at the same time, and wrap mine around him. He whimpers and I stop for a beat, but he growls, "don't stop, for the love of Crowley, don't stop Baz" and I smile against his skin and let him fill me.

I don't know whether I'm living my wildest dream or my darkest nightmare. All lines are blurred. Simon's blood and his magic fuse exquisitely into a font of liquid life that burns through me like a river of fire. His arms slide down my body and he takes me in his hands and I am in a state of ecstasy bordering on agony.

I collapse in a shuddering progression that transports me and anchors me at the same time. When I can breathe again, I softly lick the tiny punctures my fangs left in his skin. The skin heals with every stoke of my tongue until the holes are gone completely.

His breath is coming fast and irregular now, and I let my lips continue their journey down his body. My fangs draw delicate lines in his flesh as he moans beneath me. His gasps echo like music around our steamy little chamber, until they coalesce into a single endless cry and then we're both completely spent. And completely happy.

We fall back asleep in each other's arms, in a bubble of magic that keeps everything else out. The snow, the world, the past. We sleep in the present and his edges blur with mine until I'm lost in a way that feels more like being found.

 **Baz**

We head back inside, and up to our room, which feels like our room again. Simon's smiling, and I'm smiling, and everything is just tickety-boo, isn't it, except for the little fact that we still haven't actually talked about anything that happened.

I'm not sure how to broach the topic. Simon clearly doesn't want to talk about it. Last night he said it could wait. Then he said we are our own promises, we don't need words.

Forgiving and poetic as that is, it's not enough. We need to talk about this. I need to tell him what was going through my thick head. He needs to tell me how he felt. I mean, I know how he felt. But he needs to be able to tell me.

I pause mid-step and mid-thought. We've gone right back round in a circle again, haven't we? I promis ed not to think I knew what was best for him back when we had that... was it a fight? A miscommunication? A conversation while standing on two different planets? Anyway, I promised not to pretend to know what was best anymore. Maybe it's just fine to keep things bottled inside.

But there's something off with that, and I struggle to put my finger on it as Simon and I go through the motions of washing up and getting dressed. I think about it as the water pours over me in the shower and all other sounds are blissfully muted.

It's overwhelming to hear everything all the time. That's part of why I love the violin. When I play the violin, the only thing I can hear is music.

The masking sound of falling water makes me think of Simon hiding in the guestroom shower so I wouldn't hear him cry. I stifle a surge of shame. But I hate myself for being a person he has to hide from. I want him to be able to cry in front of me. I want to be able to hold him and comfort him the way he does for me.

I wonder, if I'd actually gone down to him that night, whether he would have even let me near him. It's possible he would've sat up and wiped his eyes and said it was nothing and changed the subject.

So that's it. It's not about whether or not abstractly speaking it's a legitimate choice to keep everything bottled up inside. It's that we can't be this close if he doesn't let me comfort him, too. It leaves me only half a person. The half who hurts and cries, but not the half who listens and helps.

 **Simon**

We're finishing up getting dressed and I turn to go downstairs and Baz says 'wait' behind me. I turn to him, smiling. My Baz. Mine again. But I hesitate at the look on his face. He looks sad, and determined. An unusual mix for him.

"What's wrong?" I ask, walking over and taking his hands.

"Simon. We still haven't talked about this. We can't just head downstairs and get on with the day without talking about it," he says, and I freeze.

"I don't want to talk about it," I say. I can feel my face getting red and my chin jutting out and I know I'm being obstinate but it's a mystery to me what I'm feeling stubborn about. Not talking? Is that a stubborn thing? Isn't it just a forgiving thing? So why am I suddenly so defensive?

"I know," he says. "I know that you don't want to. But that doesn't mean we don't have to."

I roll my eyes. "Is this a whole semantic thing again? Because then yeah, fine. Whatever you say. One doesn't imply the other. Glad we cleared that up. Shall we go down then?"

He just looks at me. "I'm not going to be able to get out of this, am I?" I ask. He shakes his head, softly. "May as well sit down then, yeah?" I say, and sit down on the bed.

"Nope," he says, still standing. I look at him in surprise. "We can sit. But not on the bed. I'm not letting you get out of this by kissing me."

I must look annoyed because he says, "Don't make that face at me. I know full well when you do that, you know. When you get this sexy look on your face and lean towards me until I can't help but kiss you. Neither of us is getting the easy way out of this one."

Chagrined, I sit with him on the couch. My best strategy, ruined forever. I smile. "Ok, Baz. I'm on the couch. Now what?"

"Now," he says seriously, "we talk about what happened. I can start, if you'd like. I can tell you what was going on for me. But then you need to tell me, too. What was going on for you. And first, you have to agree to do this."

 **Baz**

A flash of pain crosses his eyes and then is gone, and nothing but his smile remains. If I told anyone who knows us that I'm the emotionally open one in this relationship, they'd think I was messing with them. But Simon's unrelenting happiness is just as much of a mask as my unyielding cool.

I know what a relief it is to have someone I can be around, without ever having to pretend. And I know I can be that person for Simon, too, even if he still doesn't realize he's pretending.

I'm patient. I don't say anything. I watch him get frustrated, and I wait. Finally he lets out his breath and lets go of my hands and slumps back on the couch, fingers running through his hair, re-messing it.

"But it's like Penny said, isn't it?" he starts. "It wasn't a big deal. We had a row, and now it's over. Why do we need to relive it?"

"Because," I say softly. "Because you need to be able to tell me when you're hurt, or sad. Because I need to be a whole person. Because you deserve to be comforted." I feel like I'm saying the word 'because' a lot. I guess that's what happens when you're trying to convince the world's most stubborn boy to talk.

"But that's the thing," he says. "It's not comforting for me. To talk. It's torture. Or being sad when someone's watching me, I just. I can't."

I keep my face still. I don't raise a single eyebrow. I don't judge. I just wait.

"It's like," he whispers. "It's like as soon as I see someone seeing me, the tears stop, and all the thoughts that led to them disappear. I can't find the thoughts, even if I look for them. They're gone."

I give this some thought, and then I have an idea.

 **Simon**

Baz climbs onto the bed and my spirits lift. He's not going to make me talk after all. We can work things out without talking.

But I'm wrong. That's not what he has in mind. Damn. He sits up against the wall, his long legs folded in front of him so his bare feet are flat on the mattress and his knees define two triangles in the air. He pats the empty space in front of him and says, "come here."

He sits me in front of him, facing away from him, cradled in the space between his knees and wrapped in his arms. The back of my head rests on his chest, and his chin rests on top of my head. I can't see his face, and he can't see mine.

"There," he says. "Now I can't see you. But I can still hold you. And I like sitting like this. I like holding you. So let's sit like this for a while. Let's try to talk but it's ok if we can't. Ok?"

It's nice here in his arms. I answer silently by relaxing my body onto his. I want to be able to do this. I try to let my thoughts wander, like they do when I'm alone. But they don't comply. My mind remains quietly blank.

I feel really stupid. But I close my eyes, and we just sit quietly for a while until the weirdness starts to dissipate. I feel his heart beating steadily behind mine. I feel his hands resting gently on mine. I feel his breath move in and out against the back of my neck.

And slowly I start to feel. I still don't have any thoughts. But I feel sad. Then I feel sadder, and I clench. I can't do this. If I let myself get sad, the sadness will overtake me. I'll never find my way back from it. I'll be lost in that place of pain forever.

Baz doesn't move, doesn't talk, doesn't react to my fidgeting. He just holds me until my body starts to calm down again. I think about him holding me, about all the times he's held me like this. I think about how much has changed since the first time we kissed in the woods a year ago. I smile at the memory of his old fears, now thoroughly discarded, that he would bite me.

My fear of sadness isn't that different, I guess. I'm scared that if I let myself be sad, I will slide into that pit that always waits just below the surface of my sanity. I force myself to try think about what exactly it is I'm scared will happen. Images float to mind. Tissue paper, dust, a necklace, an empty room.

I see myself stringing the few happy parts of my past together like beads on a necklace, folding back all the bad in between so that I have a single chain of good. If I start to pull the beads apart to peek into the darkness between them, the necklace will snap. The beads will scatter. All there will be is darkness.

 **Baz**

He starts speaking, slowly at first, then more fluently. I don't really understand everything he's saying. But it's something about a necklace with beads that are good things, and talking would break it and he'd be swallowed up by the bad.

I give myself time to think before I say anything. When I'm pretty sure he's done talking, and I'm pretty sure I get some of what he's saying, I try to think of how it would feel to be him, saying it. What would I want to hear if I were him? Or what would I be willing to hear?

It's not useful for me to tell him that life isn't actually a beaded necklace, or that he's stronger than that. Plus I don't know that for sure. Maybe he does need a beaded necklace of his past. Then I know what to say.

"Ok, love. That makes sense. But maybe you don't need it to be that way anymore? In the present, I mean, not the past. Maybe that's what we need to figure out, how to balance the bad with the good, now. Even if before, it didn't. So you can feel things, as they happen."

The things I don't say: That I want to destroy everyone who did this to him. To kill them all, slowly. Everyone who made his life so unbearable that he can only experience it in fleeting glimpses.

"But I already know," he says. "I already know how sadness feels, and I hate it. Why do you want me to feel that? To feel sad?"

I think for a moment. It's a fair question. So I try to understand it myself. And then I try to explain it.

"Simon, you _are_ sad. You _already_ feel sad. You just feel your sadness in a way that cuts everyone else out, even yourself. So no one ever really knows you. It leaves me in half, that you know me but I never really know you. And it leaves you in half, too. Because no one ever gets to tell you it that it wasn't fair. And that it wasn't your fault. Any of it."

 **Simon**

He must be right, because suddenly I feel the sadness flood through me. I am consumed by the knowledge that I don't matter. I'm not safe, never safe. I'm alone. Utterly alone.

I remember how I felt yesterday, standing on the doorstep. Alone.

I feel the comforting anger return. I don't need anyone. I've never had anyone and I don't need anyone but myself.

Then, Baz was at the door. Baz. Whom I do love, whom I do need.

It's not true anymore that I can be fine on my own. I'm not sure if it ever was. I wasn't really living during those summers away from Penny, away from my friends and Watford. I was in a state of suspended animation, more dead than even my undead roommate. I don't want to live without love anymore. I don't want to be alone.

I don't even know that I'm crying until I feel the moisture fall in silent drops onto my shirt. I lean back, cradled in Baz's arms, but I still feel so alone.

 **Baz**

He's quiet, and still. I can be still too, for as long as it takes. I'm a vampire, I can become a living statue if I bloody well feel like it. I feel his hands tighten around mine, the only sign that anything is happening inside him.

I feel something fall on the sleeve of my shirt where it wraps around in front of him, and something in me twists. He's crying. Totally silently. Totally still. Like his tears are separate from him. I lean my forehead down onto the groove between his neck and his shoulder. I love him. I hope he knows that somewhere.

He starts shaking and I feel a kind of panic. It takes all my self-control (which is quite considerable, according to Penny) not to climb around to the other side of him so I'm facing him, not to take his face in my hands, not to hold him where I can see him and he can see me.

But I stay where I am. Because I promised. That was the whole promise of doing this, that I wouldn't look, I wouldn't intrude. And Merlin knows I've broken enough promises already.

He shakes in my arms and his crying turns to something else, something raw. Something primal and overwhelming. He cries like the pain is clawing its way out of his gut, breaking him in pieces on the way.

Fuck my promise. I can't stand this. There's no way this is the right thing to do.

So I crawl around until I'm facing him, and I take him in my arms and I hold him close and I whisper to him. I don't really know what to say but it probably doesn't matter that much. I'm not even sure he can hear me.

I tell him it's all over now. I tell him it won't happen again. I tell him he's not alone anymore. I tell him he's surrounded by people who love him. I tell him he's safe. I tell him I love him. I tell him he's ok. I tell him it's not his fault. I tell him it's not fair. I tell him that I like his ratatouille. I tell him that I forgot to pick up the eggs this week. I tell him about how I used to fantasize about his hair curled around my fingers. I tell him how many times I counted his moles. Then I stop talking and just hold him, until he's still.

 **Simon**

I don't know how long we've been sitting like this. I feel emptier, but ok. Maybe better? I'm not sure. I look up at Baz's face reluctantly. I don't want to see my weakness reflected in his pity.

But there's no pity in his eyes. Just love. He looks sad, but that's ok. I'm sad too. This time when I smile, it's genuine. He smiles too. Then he grimaces and says,

"I'm sure you're sick of hearing this, but. I'm sorry."

"For what?" I ask, surprised.

"I promised," he says, and winces at the word. "That I wouldn't look. That I would stay behind you."

Such a silly boy.

 **Baz**

"Baz," he says. "You need to get past this whole promise thing, yeah? That was a good promise to break. I needed you. I needed you to see me and not stay back where I couldn't see you."

"Yeah," I say. "That's what I thought."

"Yeah," he says. "Well, you were right."

I'm not totally sure what just happened between us. I still haven't told him about Malcolm or the accounts or the fear that he's disappearing. I don't think either of us can take anymore talking, though. Not today.

So instead I renew my silent vow to never stop watching over him. I decide that I'm still allowed to make promises if he can't hear me.

We're silent for a while, and then he says, "Baz?"

"Hmmm?"

"Can we maybe stop now? Stop the whole talking and crying thing?"

"Yeah," I say, trying not to smile. "We can."

"But can we still sit here like this? A bit longer?"

"Yeah," I say, letting myself smile this time. "We can."

And we do.

 **Penny**

Micah and I are downstairs getting ready for New Year's Eve dinner, later tonight. We're forced to do things the old fashioned way, using spells, since Simon's still upstairs.

I've cast a nice set of This little piggies, and the kitchen is already filled with the delicious smell of roast beef and market vegetables. Micah's done Sing a song of sixpence, resulting in a fragrant rye bread and a decent shepherds pie. I experiment with Last call and am rewarded with a keg of beer. A bit more than I'd been going for, but not bad for a first try.

"It's because of that ring," Micah says, and I hit him with a towel. Playfully. Maybe.

"Just because you Americans have decided that thousands of years of magical tradition are rubbish doesn't mean all of us have chosen to dismiss the power of magical objects." I say primly.

"How you people ever colonized half the planet is beyond me," snorts Micah. "You don't even know how to combine hot and cold water properly."

That's rather fair, actually. I can't understand why half the taps in England still have separate spouts for hot and cold. That ought to be a technology simple enough for even the most traditional to embrace.

But what I say is, "half! More like two thirds. If you're going to insult my ancestors, at least get your facts right."

"Insult your ancestors!" he protests. "No one hates the British more than the Seths." That's my mum's family, and he's right. No one hates the British more than them.

So all I can say is "humph."

"Simon's the only modernist out of all of you, and he thinks there's something wrong with him because of it," Micah continues, ranting now. "If he'd grown up in the U.S. he'd be considered a prodigy for what he can do without a crutch like a wand. Instead, he thinks he's a freak."

There's truth to that, too. I'm rather curious to see what will happen when Simon moves to Boston with us. At least, I think that's still the plan. I don't know quite what to expect from Baz now that Micah and I have thoroughly interfered with their personal lives.

Micah and I stop talking when we hear footsteps on the stairs. A minute later, Baz appears, followed by Simon.

I smile in relief. They both look fine. More than fine. They both look happier and more relaxed than they have since we arrived. Micah waggles his eyebrows at them.

"I see you've decided to kiss and make up," he observes uncouthly. "Good move. Now we can all enjoy each other's faults like reasonable people."

Ever competitive, Baz responds "ah, but I have so many more faults than most people. Simon obviously is getting the better end of this deal. I don't think he even has any faults for me to enjoy."

"Come off it, Baz," Simon retorts. "I'm fairly sure that being the greatest threat the world of mages has ever known trumps being an undead twit."

 **Baz**

"I don't think you get to count the Humdrum's faults as part of your list, Snow." I say.

"Why not? I'm him aren't I? Or he's me? Or it's I? Whatever. His list is mine. "

"Metaphors don't count."

"It's not a metaphor! I'm literally the Humdrum!"

He says it lightly, like its part of the competition. But I see the misery in his eyes, and I stop playing.

"Of course you're not, love," I say. "How could you be the Humdrum? The Humdrum's been gone for over a year. You're still here."

"I am the Humdrum!" Simon insists. "You've told me so yourself!"

"Simon, what are you talking about? I never said that. Are we having another conversation about a conversation you thought we were having when we weren't?"

"You sound like Simon," Penny says to me. "No offense, Simon," she adds, turning to him.

Simon had closed his eyes. Now he breathes deeply, and opens them again. He speaks slowly, and tears are falling down his face as he talks. My heart clenches. Well done, Pitch, I think to myself. Ruining the day, yet again.

He speaks in a voice so small I could carry it in my heart. "But you did say that. You thought that. You told me that. The night in the snow, when we were walking back, after the Humdrum attacked you." He speaks to me as though he and I are the only ones in the room. In the world.

"You told me it was me," he continues. "It made you want to kiss me, you said, because now we were both villains, both monsters. You told me to run. You," and his voice breaks but he breathes and then keeps going, even more quietly. "You told me people would be lining up to kill me. Because I was evil."

I want to protest. I never thought he was evil.

But I did _say_ all that, didn't I? I was exhausted from fighting the Humdrum, burning from Simon's magic refilling me after the Humdrum had emptied me. I was terrified when we hit the dead spot. I saw Daphne and Malcolm running towards us in their nightclothes through the snow. I knew exactly how they'd read the situation; I would have done the same myself in their place. So I told him to run.

I cringe as I think back to that night, to the next day. I did want us to match. I didn't want to be the only villain. I wanted to be better than Simon. More good, or maybe just less evil. It was comforting to think of Simon as the villain for a change. And not just any villain, but The Villain. The Greatest Threat. Chosen to destroy our world, not save it.

When we talked the next day at Bunce's, I was trying to keep him from going to the Mage. And I was angry with him for choosing the Mage over my mother. I was hurt that he would make me face the numpties alone. I was so hurt that I couldn't tell him I was hurt. So I let him keep hurting, too. I left him.

So much happened after that, it never occurred to me to fix it. Everything had changed. I didn't know he still thought about it. Idiotic in retrospect. How had I thought he'd forget about being a villain instead of a hero, of being evil instead of good?

I think back to our dance at the ball, and to our conversation months later at his flat. It all looks different to me now, knowing that he thought of me as the high judge who'd found him guilty, even after the Coven had cleared him.

I never explained what had become obvious: that his connection with the Humdrum was symbolic, not literal. Simon was the good to balance the Humdrum's evil. The fullness to his emptiness, the light to his dark, the life to his death. Simon was the antithesis of the Humdrum.

I close my eyes and let my own tears fall. "I'm sorry, Simon. I'm sorry I ever said that, and I'm sorry I never took it back. You're not the Humdrum, I know you're not the Humdrum, I've known all along, but I never thought to tell you. I didn't know you still remembered that I'd said that. I didn't even still remember I'd said that until just now, when you reminded me."

"Oh, Simon," says Penny. "That's why you did that? Why you turned yourself into the devil? Because Baz told you that you were evil?" She glares at me and I take it. I deserve far worse. I look down.

But Penny's already off explaining another theory. "Ah, that makes so much sense then, why the wings and tail disappeared after Baz said all that mushy stuff at the dance."

I look back up and glance sharply at Simon. "You _told_ her about that?" He just shrugs. Snow.

 **Simon**

I ignore Baz and turn to Penny. "Penny?" I ask. "is Baz right? That I'm not the Humdrum?"

"Why are you asking Bunce! Don't you believe me?" Baz protests.

"With all due respect, Baz, you're not a reliable narrator." Penny explains.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Baz sputters. Penny just smiles, and turns to me.

"Baz is a bit of an an idiot, Simon. But yes, he's also right. You didn't rip those holes in the magical atmosphere, not exactly. The timing seemed so convincing, that day in my father's study. Baz and I got caught out by the oldest trick in the science book. Correlation doesn't imply causation. Just because ..."

I kind of tune Penny out as she enthusiastically explains about how two things that happen at the same time can both be caused by a third thing, rather than by each other. We know now that they were both caused by the Mage's experiments. They, meaning we. Me and the Humdrum. Linked, but not causally.

She launches into a whole discourse on the dynamics of matter and antimatter and photon pairs and quantum entanglement. I use the time to watch Baz out of the corner of my eyes.

 **Baz**

I see Simon watching me while Penny talks. I catch his eye, and raise my eyebrow. He answers with a small twitch of his lips. We're ok. Again. I reach for his hand and let myself relax as he squeezes my fingers and we pretend to listen to Penny.

"When a particle collides with its antiparticle," she's saying, "like say, a proton and an antiproton, or an electron and a positron. When they collide the result is a pair of photons that have this property of quantum non locality - Einstein called it spooky action at a distance - so that whatever one is, no matter how far away, the other is the opposite. But it's not that they make one another that way. They don't cause each other, they just are. It's just their nature."

"That actually makes sense," Simon says. Penny and I both blink, and Simon laughs.

"It does?" she says, surprised.

"Yeah," he shrugs. "It's not that different from what I see in the wood and the light when I make things," he explains.

Penny looks thoughtful.

"I'm pretty sure now's not the right time," she says. "But we have to start keeping track of your observations and testing them against competing theories in theoretical physics."

"Sounds like a laugh," he says. Penny glares, and he amends. "A laugh, or a thesis topic. Whatever."

 **Penny**

"Well that settles it, then," says Baz. "I win."

"Not so fast!" I object. "Just because he's not the Humdrum doesn't mean he doesn't have an impressive roster of faults all on his own."

"I can't tell if you're helping me or insulting me," says Simon.

"Those options are not mutually exclusive, Snow," says Baz.

"You chew with your mouth open. You never use a napkin. You knock things over like an ox. You're scared of horses. You charge ahead into everything without thinking. You leave crumbs in bed. You-"

Micah and Baz both interrupt me at the same time. "How do you know what he does in bed?"

Boys.

 **Simon**

While Penny finishes her impromptu physics seminar, I notice the sad meal they've assembled. I'm horrified at the mess Penny and Micah have made of my kitchen. Have they forgotten that I promised Micah a molecular New Year's Eve dinner? So as soon as she stops talking, I shoo them out and get to work.

I set them to work too. Penny heads off to design a midnight countdown spell. Micah goes to the pantry to gather turnips and mushrooms for me to transform into creams and foams.

Baz goes to the cellar to collect the champagne. I couldn't believe Penny conjured a keg. She says I'm becoming as snobby as Baz, which is right unfair. You don't need to be a snob to know that New Year's Eve in France requires champagne.

 **Micah**

Miraculously, dinner was fun. I got to annoy Baz by telling him I can make pizza by quoting Caesar. I cast pizza! pizza! and he was confused until Penny explained about the odd naming conventions of certain American fast food chains.

Which wasn't nice of her, especially considering that I made the pizza in the first place to rescue her from the turnip foam. (Which was exquisite, actually. I can't wait for Simon to be properly trained. There's a thriving scene of magical culinary arts in New England, and he'll be a sensation. I plan to take credit for discovering him.)

Penny charmed an army of bubbles to gather on the ceiling and then burst in shower of light at midnight. It was amazing. Magical again, not just magickal. As the bubbles exploded and settled around us, we each kissed the person we loved most in the world, and floated into the new year on a wave of champagne and laughter.

 **Baz**

Mordelia has the lead role of Annie in her school play. She was so thrilled when Simon told her that of course we'd come to see it, that I didn't have the heart to object. So we've taken a full day traveling to get here, and will take another to get home, plus two days in between, just to spend a couple of hours in a school assembly hall.

When I said something about how unbalanced that was, Simon just shrugged and said, "what else are we going to do with all our free time?" It was uncomfortably close to what I'd said to Dev and Niall when they complained about wasting their childhood plotting against Simon. Which only served to remind me of the other reason I was anxious about being in London.

It's been ok so far. I like driving with Simon. We could take the train, but I love the feeling of his power coursing through me as I cast Better safe than sorry and Are we there yet to speed safely across the roads all the way home.

 **Simon**

Mordelia's starring in her school play Monday afternoon, so Baz and I drive back to London for the weekend. It's the first time I've been home since Dev rang my doorbell last fall. I feel a little panicked when we first come in, and I kind of collapse onto the couch. Baz sits down next to me and I curl into a ball and hide my face in his lap. Which quickly becomes distracting. My panic is replaced by far nicer memories of the earlier part of the fall. Those weeks after Baz and I got secretly engaged. When everything between us felt new.

Being back here makes me feel that way all over again. Just walking back into my bedroom together brings heat to my face. Baz clearly feels the same way, because he turns to me with a wild glint in his eyes that I haven't seen in a long time.

I move near him and look up into his face, close enough that he can feel my breath on his lips, but not actually touching him. When I see him start to move, I take half a step back, teasing, so he has to bend towards me to catch my mouth with his. My heart quickens as he grabs my neck and hair with his strong, graceful hands. He licks my ear and my knees practically give out. He laughs warmly against my neck and lifts me effortlessly in his pale arms.

Later, in bed, I lazily admire the lines of his back and the stretch of his shoulders. Our bodies have changed a lot while we've been in France, playing football and working in the vegetable garden instead of sitting in class or typing up papers.

Being back in London with Baz feels like taking off a cast I hadn't realized I was wearing. Everything is the same, and everything is different. The same matter, but given new form. Like emerging from a chrysalis. Like cracking through a shell from the inside. Breaking free, without being broken.

It's like love. Transformative and scary and protective at the same time.

We have the flat to ourselves. Penny moved to Boston with Micah back in January. Baz and I decided that we needed a bit more time to sort ourselves out before leaving for the States. We're going to wait to move there in the summer, and start uni again in the fall.

I didn't expect things to work out that way. My plan had been to get a job when we moved to Boston. I knew I wouldn't have much money left from my leprechaun stash after paying for the flight and a place to live, and American universities are wicked expensive. I didn't really mind. I'd rather spend time cooking in a restaurant than write long papers debating the merits of Quine's theory of ontological relativity.

Baz had been acting weird about the whole thing. (This was back in February.) First he said that it made no sense for me to worry about money, because he had enough money for both of us.

I tried to point out why that was idiotic, without explicitly bringing up the fact that he'd recently decided to leave me. He may have changed his mind, but he can always change it again. Even if he never leaves me, I don't plan to be dependent on him that way. I mean, I'm not overly fussed about money. I don't have a problem with Baz buying me things. But there are limits.

I was getting kind of irritated that he was making me spell all this out, when it should have been obvious. This went on for a while until he finally told me about his conversation with Malcolm.

We still hadn't talked about it, because the topic of his father had become too wrapped up in the memory of Baz saying he doesn't love me. Neither of us intended to avoid the conversation forever, but every day that went by without talking made it a little harder to dredge everything up again.

Baz finally worked up the courage to tell me everything he and Malcolm had said to each other. Then he told me about how, weeks later, he figured out that his parents had set up a trust for me the same as Baz and his sisters had. And that the trust would remain in place regardless of whether or not Baz and I stayed together.

At first, I was angry. Stubborn angry. Confused angry. I hated the idea of his parents giving me anything. The last people I wanted to owe something to were the people who'd made Baz hide our relationship. The people who had been willing to let me be kidnapped and die. Who had, before that, been planning to kill me.

I didn't want his parents to have any power over Baz, and I certainly didn't want them to have any power over me. I couldn't figure out what kind of twisted game they were playing. Were they trying to trick him into trusting them, so they could re-impose their version of who he had to be?

I had no idea what to say, so I decided to just tell him honestly what I felt. I told him I hated the idea of them owning me. I told him I didn't trust them. That I thought they were trying to buy our forgiveness.

To my surprise, Baz was palpably relieved by how I reacted. It made him feel like I'd be able to understand everything that he had gone through that terrible week. He finally explained about how suffocated he'd felt, and how confused he had been about why. How he thought it was me making him feel suffocated, until Penny pointed out that it was them.

In the end, we both decided we didn't have to figure out how to react to all this right now. But he did convince me to finish school. So much can change in the next few years, it doesn't seem sensible to try and plan beyond that.

 **Baz**

We arrive at Mordelia's school and Daphne waves us over to where they've saved us seats. Malcolm looks relieved when I accept his greetings and handshake, and he even smiles at Simon as he says "Lovely to see you both. It was very kind of you to come all this way."

Daphne kisses my cheeks and then Simon's, and we can finally sit. Genie is on Daphne's lap beside me, but she quickly crawls over to sit on my lap instead. I love the warm feeling of her tiny face on my shoulder. She leans on me and grabs my hair with one chubby fist, putting the thumb of her other hand in her mouth, and sighs contentedly.

Simon sits beside me at first, but Emmy and Phil start to fight over who gets to sit next to him, so he shifts over obligingly and they settle themselves on either side of him. I smile at him over Emmy's head and he smiles back and we feel like a family. My heart feels full and warm, and it seems like it'll all be ok.

Until the play starts. I'd been so worried about seeing my family, I hadn't given much thought to the play itself. It's a children's play, based on an old comic strip. It's silly and sentimental and fairly meaningless. Except for one thing. It's set in an orphanage.

Mordelia plays a spunky little redheaded orphan who never lets life get her down. She's the ringleader of a bunch of sad little girls who sing about being beaten and starved and forced to work to the point of nightmares and exhaustion. It's chilling.

I feel ill. I glance around, wondering why no one is protesting. No one else seems to notice. Daphne is smiling proudly at Mordelia, who is tap dancing around the stage with a mop and pail. The children scrub the floor on their hands and knees while the sadistic head of the orphanage sings about how much she hates them, and then forces them to tell her they love her.

I can't understand why everyone else is smiling indulgently, as though this is all perfectly entertaining. As though a room full of well-fed, wealthy people being amused by abject suffering is anything other than despicable.

I can't believe they let children watch this, let alone act in it. I can't get enough air. I feel like I'm going to pass out.

I turn to look at Simon, horrified that I've brought him here. But he's smiling as well, a sleeping twin resting on each leg. He's staring off into space though, not watching the play at all. He feels my glance and looks over to me. I can't read the look on his face. His eyes are warm and his lips turn up but there's something intense about the way he's looking at me.

Genie starts to fuss in my arms and I literally leap at the chance to get out of my seat. One of the kids on stage says "leapin' lizards!" at the exact same moment, and I have to stifle the hysterical giggle that threatens to escape my lips.

As Mordelia's character is brought to the home of a wealthy old man as a PR stunt, I brush off Daphne's attempt to take Genie from me, and carry the baby softly to the back of the room. I can't leave while Simon's still in there, so I stand awkwardly in the back, bouncing Genie gently until she stops fussing. I watch the rest of the play with tears streaming down my face.

 **Simon**

I glance over at Baz. Genie is snuggled in his arms, and the sight does something strange to my heart. The twins are asleep, holding hands across me, their little heads on my lap. It feels like we're a family. I start daydreaming about me and Baz having kids, making sure they brush their teeth and telling them to do their homework.

I've never really given much thought to having kids before, but it feels sweet to sit here together like this, me and Baz and three little girls. I'm not paying any attention to the play, but I don't think it really matters. When I glance over again, I notice that Baz is staring at me intently, and I wonder if his mind is wandering down the same path as mine.

Genie starts fussing and he gets up, bouncing her expertly as he walks to the back of the auditorium. I spend the rest of the play lost in a silly domestic fantasy of being married to Baz and living in a house filled with kids and sneaking into closets to kiss so they won't see us.

When the applause wakes me out of my reverie, I stand with the rest of the audience and clap loudly when Mordelia steps forward to take a bow. It's hard to clap with a toddler in each arm, so I make the sound with my mouth instead and magic it into a noise that sounds like clapping. It makes the girls giggle. I'm fairly sure none of the Normals around us notice, but I stop anyway.

I transfer Phil and Emmy to Daphne and Malcolm as they push forward to collect the beaming Mordelia and I head off in the opposite direction to find Baz. When I find him, the sight leaves me lightheaded.

Being in such an unfamiliar place makes me see him as if for the first time. The long powerful lines of his body, the elegance of his frame in a dark blue suit. His startling face, pale skin framed with black hair and set with sensuous lips and stunning grey eyes.

I'm drowning in dual streams of desire and tenderness, staring at his fit torso and slender hips as he leans over the pram to tuck in the sleeping baby. He doesn't see me, and I approach him noisily so he can decide how he wants to react. I'm still unsure how he wants us to behave around his family.

To my happy surprise, he takes me in his arms and kisses me in an unambiguously proprietary way. I flush with the heat of the kiss and the warmth of the knowledge that he will kiss me this way, now matter where we are, and with no regard for who may be watching.

We stand, hand in hand, watching Genie sleep and waiting for the rest of Baz's family to come out. Baz seems anxious, which is understandable. I know how hard it must be for him to see Malcolm, with everything that's happened hovering unspoken between them.

"Are you ok, love?" he asks me, squeezing my hand gently. I guess my concern must have shown on my face.

"Yeah, I'm ok. Being with your family has been nice so far. Are you ok? You seem quieter than usual." I reply.

"I'm so sorry I made you sit through that play," he bursts out, glancing away and then back at me.

I'm surprised. Does he think I dislike spending time watching little kids stumble their cute way through a play?

"The kids may not be professional actors, but it wasn't _that_ bad!" I laugh, confused. But, if I'm honest with myself, I'm also not confused. I know the next thing he's going to say before he says it. That's a nice reversal. I guess I can read his mind, too.

"Simon, you know what I mean. I didn't realize that's what the play was going to be about. It made me feel sick. It must have made you feel worse." He turns to me with a sweet but worried look, and I slip my arm around him.

Baz

I don't blame him for not wanting to tell me how he feels. It's hard enough for him under the best of circumstances. And here we're surrounded by people, and my parents will join us any second. So I try to talk to him silently, with just my eyes.

He puts his arm around me as we both stand side by side, looking at Genie sleep. I'm grateful for the gesture. I put my arm around him in return, a band of steel to protect him from school productions.

To my surprise, he starts talking. I turn to him, but he just looks down at Genie while he speaks.

Simon

I try to explain how I'm feeling, because I know he's worried. And because I've discovered that talking to Baz is nicer than just refusing to think about things.

I think about the dissonance of words that carry so much pain being set to such cheery music. The strangeness of literally sitting in an audience, and watching my own childhood on a stage, no matter how sanitized and simplified the version was.

I think about the extra weirdness of watching children who are loved and sheltered and protected act out the roles of children who are abandoned and beaten and neglected. The children of one world pretending to be the children of the other.

I guess I was paying more attention to the play than I'd realized. I just didn't let myself know it while it was happening. But I've learned that it's worth making myself think, at least for long enough to give form to my feelings. To send the thoughts away on a raft of words, to stop them from spinning into an exhausting storm in my head.

"It's hard to know where I belong," I say. "I felt like an imposter, sitting in that audience. I'm scared that someone is going to realize that I'm really an orphan, that I belong in that terrible world, that I have no right to sneak into this other world. It feels like at some point, fate is going to catch up with me, and punish me for trespassing. Like I have to be punished for being happy."

Baz puts his hand on my cheek and softly turns my face towards him. I look in his eyes. His fierce, sad, loving eyes.

"You belong in the good world, Simon. You are what makes the world good. You deserve to be happy. There's only one world. You're allowed to be happy. Nothing is going to take that from you. You are goodness, you transformed my world into good."

I'm surprised by this outburst of emotion, and by the somewhat incoherent rush of words from Baz, who's always so eloquent and controlled. I'm surprised that he's talking this way, not hiding his thoughts behind a cool wall of irony. I guess he's learned something too, from our tentative practice of talking about things instead of hiding them.

I lean in to kiss him, but he's not finished speaking. My trick no longer works as reliably, but I think that's for the best.

"But I know what you mean," he adds slowly. "Feeling like you don't belong here, like your presence is somehow a lie. I feel like that too. But maybe, if we don't belong here, it's not because this is the good world and we're not allowed in. Maybe it's because this is the world of people who split the world to begin with. Who let a parallel world of suffering exist right beside their own, pretending not to see it. Or maybe really not seeing it. So maybe we really don't belong here. We belong in a better world. We can be our own world. We can find a new world."

I try not to smile as he talks. I'm touched by his speech, and by the fact that he's getting carried away and delivering an earnest soliloquy here in a school hallway. I'm touched by how deeply the play affected him.

But the scene is so absurd, his passion in the midst of science projects and drawings of unicorns displayed along the hallway. And I guess I'm kind of nervous, and this is all getting too intense for me.

I can't hold in my nervous laughter when he says we're going to found a new world. First giggling, then outright laughing.

"I guess we are setting out to the New World in a few months." I get out between breaths. "We are mighty explorers who already own a flat that we'll share with the wild and unknown inhabitants of that strange land. Perhaps we can name it New England."

He and punches my arm lightly in mock disapproval and I pretend to be wounded and we goof around until his family finally joins us and we head out for dinner.

But I know he's right. We can make our own world, be our own fate. Wherever Baz is, that's where I belong. Baz is my world, and no world could be better than that.

 **Mordelia**

I was brilliant. I know because Mum and Dad told me so. But also I could feel it, as I sang my lines and watched the audience.

I was disappointed to see Baz move to the back of the room partway through the play, but I do realize that he was just taking the baby so Mum could stay to watch. So I won't make a fuss.

I was chuffed that Simon stayed the whole way through. I'm quite important to him. He came all this way just to watch me star in my play. I bask in the knowledge as I graciously accept the praise of the adults around me.

I feel important as I head back stage to change into my street clothes. I feel elated in a way I've never felt after cello recitals.

I pretend to be calm, though. I nod coolly to my friends and call out my goodbyes as I walk calmly to the hallway where I know my family is waiting. I glance down my nose at the smaller children and let my left eyebrow rise slightly above my right. I learned that from Baz. I have no idea what it means, but I like how it feels on my face.

 **Baz**

Mordelia is as formidable as any monarch as she decrees that we will celebrate her success at an restaurant she loves. I suspect she loves it because it makes my father almost noticeably uncomfortable, but the food is quite good as well.

It's an Ethiopian restaurant, where the food is eaten traditionally around a table, from communal plates covered in injera and heaped artfully with sauces and stews. In lieu of cutlery, you rip off pieces of the spongy flat bread and use the strips to scoop up your food.

Mordelia doesn't allow my parents to request plates and flatware. She says it's rude. She is a little dictator and I grin while watching Malcolm concede to her demand for culturally appropriate behavior.

It's an enjoyable reversal. Simon is in his element. No forks to choose between, no spoon sizes to confound him. And he has no hesitation about scooping food up with his fingers and eating right out of his hands. He makes it look natural. Sensual. Sexy.

Malcolm, on the other hand, looks like an anxious child, constantly glancing around to see if he's doing this right.

It's easier for me to see my father's insecurities now. How had I failed to realize for so many years that his cool shell of superiority was as much of an act as my own?

I wonder how it would have felt to notice this before being completely disillusioned with him. Would it have stung more, to discover his fallibility when I still held him up as a hero? Or would it have felt less bitter, if it hadn't been preceded by such brutal betrayal?

 **Simon**

I feel comfortably full and warm and sleepy. I would never have believed that a day with Baz's family could turn out this way. With a sense of love and acceptance, and the promise of a future together.

It helps that Baz never leaves my side. His fingers link with mine as we sit and eat dinner. His eyes follow me when I stand up, and his arm slips back around me as soon as I sit down again. He's been quiet all evening, but that's not unusual where his family is concerned. Oddly, I'm the more talkative one when we're around the lot of them.

Tonight was especially nice. I hadn't had a chance to give the girls their Christmas gifts until now. I had no idea how fun it would be to watch their tiny, intent faces as they gleefully ripped open the wrapping.

I made the twins matching kaleidoscopes that refract light through bits of glass and drops of water and salt embedded in wooden frames. Malcolm admires them so much that I promise to make him one, too.

Genie has just started walking, so I made her a push-along toy that spins and changes color and makes sounds when you push it. She mostly likes chewing on the handle.

Mordelia's gift took the most thought, since she was the one most likely to give it any thought herself. I decided against more magic tricks. Instead, I made her a working miniature stage, with lights and curtains and changeable sets and a small pile of moveable puppets.

Her Baz-esque poise breaks with an excited squeal. She is too busy exploring and playing to so much as say thank you. Which delights me, but horrifies Daphne. How could anyone prefer for a kid to say "thank you" rather than jumping headfirst into whatever gift you'd given them?

I still find adults strange, even though I know that Baz and I are ever more steadily transforming into adults ourselves.

Which is part of what made today so unexpectedly sweet. Watching Baz with his sisters, enjoying the feeling of taking care of them together. Imagining having kids ourselves. It's all so strange and new.

And that's one more thing I've discovered. Things keep changing and being new. In the past, every time something's changed, it was because it broke. And every time my world broke, I broke with it, splintering off a new self to confront the demands of the new reality. Now Baz anchors me to familiarity, so I notice everything changing.

I escape into my magic when it gets too much for me. When I'm completely focused on creating something, like the kaleidoscopes, my magic flows freely. It travels between me and the world around me, between my hands and whatever I hold in them. Everything starts to shimmer and blur. It's a little like when I used to go off, because my edges would blur then too.

But now it doesn't feel like I'm out of control and about to destroy everything around me. It feels like sliding into a warm bath. It feels like those moments between sleeping and waking, where dreams and reality mix. It feels peaceful and safe.

At first, I was scared that my magic would get so lost in the air and elements around me that the rest of me would be lost too, and I'd never find my way back. Maybe that's exactly what would have happened, if it weren't for Baz.

When Baz touches me, I snap back into myself, no matter how far I've spread. When his long fingers stroke my skin, all my boundaries reform, pulled together in a tug of desire that never abandons me.

I can't totally disappear. If I had no edges, I would never get to feel his skin move across the space where I end and he begins. When his soft lips find mine, every part of me rushes back to fill the outline he defines with his breath and sweat and scent. I can never be lost if I know his arms will always be there to find me.

 **Baz**

I watch Simon carefully during dinner, waiting to see if he's been upset by the play. I need to touch him, to reassure myself that he's here now, with me. That he's safe and loved, that he knows I want him and love him and need him. More than I need to breathe. More than I need blood. More than I need fire.

I see Malcolm follow Simon's explanation of how he's made the girls' toys with avid interest. Father isn't making an effort anymore; he genuinely likes Simon. He's not judging him, just listening to him.

Honestly, I'm a bit jealous. I could never get away with being illiterate in Greek and Latin or unable to play an instrument.

Simon seems completely at ease, and my own equilibrium slowly gets restored. Simon's ok. He's more than ok, he's brilliant. His grin lights up the room. I can see people at the other tables looking over just to get a glimpse of him. He overflows. With love, with magic, with beauty. With life. When Simon speaks, everyone feels that he is speaking just to them.

I float on the knowledge that for me, it's true. When he looks at me, I'm the only thing he sees. It raises a flush on my cheeks and fills my heart with a swelling joy that I don't try to hold in. When I speak, he listens as though my words have the power to shape the world. When I reach for him, he let me become his world.

I mean, I've read Shakespeare. I know Simon and I didn't invent love. But it feels as though we did. It feels like no one before us has ever known how to set the world on fire and quench it again. It feels like no two people have ever filled and emptied each other the way we have.

Simon tells me I make him whole. That I re-form him every time I touch him. I tell him that my breath only heats for him. That my heart only beats when he's near me. I am only truly alive when he's with me. I tell him about how the windows in the house stayed empty and blank in those terrible hours when he was gone.

Simon tells me that he'll never leave again. That no matter how dead I may feel inside, he will always be there to revive me. And so I live, with him. For him. For Simon, the hero of my story, always.

 **Simon**

I'm frozen in fear. Not from goblins, or vampires, or even excessive table settings. I've been cowed by laundry detergent.

I'm in the Stop-N-Shop at Porter Square. Penny and Baz sent me to do the shopping, saying that since I'm going to be training as a chef, I need to get used to American supermarkets. They're not even trying to make sense anymore when they gang up on me.

We moved to Cambridge last month. Cambridge Massachusetts, that is. I'm starting at culinary school in a few weeks. Penny's starting at MIT, and Baz will be at Harvard. The three of us are sharing a flat, since Micah's still in Providence at Brown. He and Penny travel back and forth every weekend, so Baz and I have a pretty good balance of privacy and forced socializing.

I thought our two countries spoke the same language, but I was dead wrong. For the first couple of weeks after arriving, I would blush madly every time I overheard a girl ask if her pants looked all right. Penny told us about how she wanted to murder Micah the first time she came for the summer and he let her dress up as batgirl for a fancy party, only to discover that fancy dress means formalwear to Americans, not costumes.

But none of that prepared me for the sheer madness that is the suburban American supermarket. Take this array of laundry detergent, for example. It's a gaudy parade of monosyllables. Tide. All. Gain. Dreft.

And each brand offers a bewildering variety of options: With and without dye. With and without bleach. Bleach for whites and bleach for colors. Fresh scent, lemon scent, powder scent. Unscented. Delicate, heavy duty, cold water, hot water, hard water. (How the blazes can water be hard?!) Sensitive, ultra-sensitive, with and without fabric softener. Regular and high efficiency. Powder, liquid, gel, pods. Whatever happened to plain old enzymatic and non-enzymatic? Who could possibly want this many choices?

I've been standing here like an idiot for a good twenty minutes before I finally give up and call Baz to come rescue me. (Baz convinced me that I need my own phone now. Since no one is going to call me here but him and Penny, I agreed.)

 **Baz**

I see Simon's number come up on my phone, and I grin. I can't help it. And then I grin again, because I can't get used to the fact that I don't have to try to help it. No one here gives a shit what expression I have on my face. No one here knows me. So no one here has any assumptions about my attitude towards the world around me. It's liberating.

I pretend to be annoyed when I answer my phone and Simon explains that he needs help choosing laundry detergent. But in fact, I'm thrilled to have an excuse to go find him. He's only been gone for what, half an hour? I miss him already.

I hadn't anticipated how free I would feel in Boston. There's no looming decision about what we're going to do or where we're going to move. There's no lingering claustrophobia. There's no lack of people to argue with and surpass.

As a result, I never want to be away from Simon. He, however, is excited about venturing out on his own, exploring this through-the-looking-glass world that we've found ourselves in. I don't much mind when he goes, but I'm happy to be called to his side.

When I see him staring at the wall of detergent as though it's a dark creature sent by an unusually tidy Humdrum, I can't hold back a laugh. I slip my hand into his, startling him out of his reverie. The automatic smile he gives me when he registers my presence fills me with warmth and heat and love. I kiss him lingeringly, and then turn to face down our enemy together.

 **Simon**

Baz mocked me on the phone but immediately relents when he sees that I wasn't exaggerating about the problem. He doesn't even try to figure it out, just phones up Penny.

How many mages does it take to wash a load of dirty clothes?

 **Penny**

Simon went to the market. Then, Baz went to help Simon. Now I'm going to help Baz.

Once again, their incompetence is a comforting validation of my own. But my incompetence regarding American supermarkets is a thing of the past, so this time I get to play the part of hero.

Admittedly, rescuing them from cleaning supplies is not as thrilling as some of the other adventures we've had. But at least I can be confident that none of us will end up dead.

I'm finally free of any remaining resentment towards Baz for all the years he spent attacking Simon. The war feels so far from here. And that old version of Baz – the sulking, sneering, scheming Baz – seems to have been left behind with his family. It's obvious now how much of a toll it had taken on him to have to hide who he was from his parents his whole life.

Being across the ocean helps. It helps, too, that his parents have so radically changed their attitudes. Baz finally told Simon everything after the Great Holiday Debacle, as Micah's taken to calling it. And of course Simon immediately told me.

I'd already heard part of the story from Baz, but the new details were fascinating. I can't believe I spent Christmas in The Warded House! And I can't believe Baz's parents know that Simon is Lady Salisbury's grandson. One good thing about Malcolm being such an uptight prick is that I'm pretty sure they will never tell her.

But once someone knows, even if they don't tell anyone else… Well, it gives me hope that Simon might be ready one day to reclaim his mother's family. The more I learn about Lucy, the more I like her.

I don't know what it would do to Simon to have Lady Salisbury as a grandmother. But Lucy also had an older brother, Matthew. Matt and Lucy were close, and when she disappeared, he kind of just disappeared too. At least from the magickal community. Mum is pretty sure she could still get in touch with him using his uni email address, though. Oxford forwards those on forever, apparently.

Mum and I speak often, even with the time difference. She spent Christmas grappling with Simon being her best friend's child as well as her child's best friend. When I went back home after New Year's, we were finally able to talk about what happened to Lucy.

I don't think I've ever seen mum feel guilty about something before. And she finally understood why I was so angry about being asked to care less about Simon than I do about my biological family. So now things are good with us again. Baz is right, it's a lot easier to forgive someone after they express remorse.

No one besides the four of us and my parents know that the Mage is Simon's father, though. And I'm happy for it to stay that way.

 **Simon**

Penny is more sympathetic than I expect when she arrives. She confesses that her strategy when choosing groceries has been to cast Tell me what you want, what you really really want, until a few packages launch themselves into her cart and she can move on.

She gives us an enthusiastic demonstration. I glance around anxiously, but no one so much as blinks. Apparently Americans are happy to ignore a Brit singing ancient Spice Girls tunes in the supermarket.

"Come on, you two," she says, leading the way to the next aisle. "If you think laundry detergent is bad, wait until you see the breakfast cereal."

When we finally find everything we need and get back to our flat, Micah is just getting out of his car. Penny heads off with him to get some lunch, and Baz and I go inside to put away the groceries.

At least, I'm planning to put away the groceries. Apparently, Baz has other things in mind. Before the door is even closed, he's abandoned his bags on the kitchen counter and filled his newly empty hands with my hair and my shirt.

"Hey," I protest weakly, laughing against his lips. "Let me at least put the ice cream in the freezer!" He doesn't stop kissing me for long enough to say anything. He just takes the bags from my hands and drops them unceremoniously onto the floor, then pulls my arms around him and starts dragging me out if the kitchen. I decide to give in. I like soupy ice cream anyway.

 **Baz**

Much as it's nice to be back in civilization, I miss being totally alone with Simon. So when I see Penny walk off with Micah and know that Simon and I are about to have the flat to ourselves for a few hours, I can't wait to get inside.

Simon is concerned about the food going bad (of course his mind is on food) but I ignore him and pull him onto the couch on top of me. I let one hand twist through his hair while the other relieves him of his clothes. I pause for a moment, just to stare.

Everything is made new in this new world. His skin looks different in the light of the Boston sun, golden and warm. His blue eyes are even bluer under the crisp autumn sky. When he's with me like this, his eyes close halfway and his mouth softens and his breath melts me. I don't know what I look like to him, but it must be ok, because he gets impatient with the interruption and leans in to kiss me.

Simon's fingers graze my chest and his hands dance their way across the smooth muscles of my back until I'm arching up to him, breathless. My nails trace his lines and my fingers claim him as my own and I whisper his name into the secret spaces between us.

The couch starts to feel too small. Normal people would get up and walk to the bedroom, but neither of us is remotely Normal.

So instead, the couch starts to rise until it has room to expand under the silent force of Simon's magic. Now the cushions around us rock and tilt in response to our own movements until everything – our bodies, the air, the couch beneath us – is quivering, synchronized in a sweet rhythm that builds until all of us are ready to come back down.

 **Simon**

Baz laughs at me for drinking the melted ice cream straight from the container, but then complains when I won't share. I tell him he's allowed to lick the chocolate from my lips. Needless to say, we still haven't managed to put a single thing away before we hear Penny and Micah climbing the stairs to our landing. Baz casts A spoon full of sugar over his shoulder and the groceries quickly arrange themselves behind us as he and I slip into our bedroom.

It's fun to be strangers in a strange land together. It's like when we had Christmas together with no parents around. I fit in here (or fail to) just as much as he does. There's nothing to remind me of sadness in a place that holds no memories except the ones we're making now.


End file.
